A German police investigation has found a small arsenal attributed to terrorists of Hamas in Bulgaria. In Poland there were also searches for weapons with which the terrorist organization could commit attacks.
For a Palestinian terrorist organization like Hamas, Germany is a safe place, a “haven.” That term is at least the one that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution uses in its latest report, the intelligence services of the German Ministry of the Interior.
“Western states like Germany are considered like a refuge in which the organization focuses on collecting donations, recruiting new supporters, and disseminating its propaganda,” reads the document, published in June 2023.
[Detenidos 7 miembros de Hamás en tres países europeos: querían atentar contra judíos]
However, that assessment predates the terrorist pogrom against Israel on October 7, 2023, a date that also seems to have changed everything in Europe for that Palestinian terrorist organization.
Now, it is assumed in Germany that Hamas's strategy also includes carrying out attacks on European soil. Hence, as the editorial staff of public television ARD has assessed, “we must reassess the danger that Hamas represents in Germany.”
Hamas has been very seriously suspected for months of planning attacks against Jewish institutions in Europe, according to information handled by investigators from the German Attorney General's Office. Precisely for this same reason there are four people in Germany in provisional prison since the end of last year.
The four are considered “alleged members of the foreign terrorist organization Hamas,” according to the German attorney general's office. They are two Lebanese and an Egyptian who have been living in Germany for years. The fourth is a Dutchman of foreign origin. His arrest marks the first arrests of Hamas members in Germany for alleged preparation of terrorist attacks.
One of the Lebanese, identified by German authorities as “Abdelhamid Al A.” was in charge of locating the weapons that the organization itself had left on European soil in the past, according to the French press agency. Agence France-Pressewhich cites research sources.
According to the revelations made by the weekly Der Spiegel, another of the detainees, identified as “Ibrahim El-R.”, had images on his mobile phone carrying weapons with several pistols and ammunition. The digital information of those images, in the possession of the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA, by its German acronym), was made available to the Bulgarian authorities.
Apparently the images had been taken in Bulgariawhere police officers ended up finding a small arsenal attributed to Hamas in the south of the Eastern European country a few days ago.
Said arsenal, composed of several pistols, an assault rifle and ammunition, ended up in a police station in Plovdiv, the second largest city in Bulgaria. The bag was next to a pine tree, well buried, although that did not prevent the weapons from being somewhat rusty, according to the images made public by the ARD.
Officially it is still an “alleged arsenal” of Hamas. According to him Der Spiegelthe BKA, following the trail of the four arrested at the end of last year, was able to observe how those now arrested had been looking for weapons, dressed in clothing and camping equipment, in Polandnot far from the German-Polish border.
They had not been successful in that search but their activities were very suspicious to investigators. From Berlina city that is supposed to have also been the victim of an attack by the Palestinian terrorist organization, you can reach the Polish border in just one hour by car on the highway.
Burying weapons in the field
After the discovery of the Bulgarian arsenal, it is not clear that Poland is a place where Hamas has hidden weapons to carry out attacks.
The weekly Die Zeit has realized, in relation to this practice of terrorists consisting of hiding weapons underground with which to carry out attacks, that on German soil the Red Army Fraction (RAF) had already been seen doing it.
The RAF was a far-left terrorist organization responsible for 34 murders – of which only one has been fully clarified -, several kidnappings and armed robberies. The neo-Nazi terrorist organization also buried weapons at the time to hide them. National Socialist Resistance (NSU, for its German acronym). The NSU is responsible for ten murders in several racist attacks and another against a police officer in its seven years of existence (2000-2007).
Unlike those two extinct organizations, Hamas appears to maintain considerable activity in Germany. Otherwise, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution would not have registered the existence of some 450 “members or militants” of that Palestinian Islamist organization living on German soil.
Hamas in Germany
The European Union considers Hamas terrorist organization since 2003. In 2001, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist organization, the Brigades, had already entered the European blacklist of terrorist organizations. Izz al-Din al-Qassem.
Under this consideration, the German Interior Ministry banned two associations linked to Hamas in 2002 and 2005. The one banned in 2005 was called 'Yatim-Children's Aid Association', it was a structure that continued the association banned in 2002, the 'Al-Aqsa Association'.
From 2021 The use of Hamas emblems is prohibited in Germany. In November last year, as a result of the brutal October 7 terrorist attack against Israel launched from the Gaza Strip, Hamas became banned in Germany.
Among other things, this Palestinian Islamist organization is considered to “harm substantial interests of the Federal Republic of Germany”, according to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
In Germany, the chancellor, Olaf Scholzlike its predecessor, Angela Merkel, consider Israel's security to be a “reason of state.” Until last October 7, few could think that Hamas was going to be another threat to security in Germany. Now in Scholz's country there are four members of said terrorist organization behind bars, in provisional prison. And the investigation continues.
