Berlin Christmas market attack forecast by German security chiefs

ANALYSIS: Germany’s security chief saw the writing on the wall long before a truck ploughed into a Christmas market in Berlin – but could it have been prevented?

The writing on the wall for such an attack in Germany has existed for some time. Picture: AFP

EARLIER this year Germany’s security chief Hans-Georg Maassen was asked about the threat of Islamic jihadists to the nation.

“We are not an island,” the no-nonsense domestic intelligence agency boss told an international policing conference.

In keeping with policy, there was no need to publicly divulge much more without causing fear or a public backlash indirectly toward the one million Syrian and Iraqi refugees Chancellor Angela Merkel had agreed to take, of which more than 890,000 have already arrived.

But he did add that the nation needed to prepare for a jihadist attack and by that he did not mean physical preparation by his and other internal law enforcers but the public’s mental state to such an assault.

In Germany the threat has always been a “when” and not an “if” as the country has for the past three years been waging one of Europe’s largest internal security operations matched only in scale and depth to that that has been ongoing in France since the 2015 Charlie Hebdo jihadist attack.

In many respects the challenges in Germany are far greater and the only reason a large-scale incident as that sadly seen in the Breitscheidplatz square Christmas market in Berlin hasn’t been seen earlier, is testament only to the strength of Germany’s intelligence regimen and not the resolve of attackers.

Authorities inspect a truck that had sped into a Christmas market in Berlin. Picture: AFP

But as the world has seen elsewhere in the past two years particularly, no nation can stop a lone-wolf attacker armed with a gun, a knife or a Scania semi-trailer truck.

Jihadists have stalked Germany for many years, certainly since Islamic State emerged in 2014.

While puritanical Salafists amount to only 8000 members, only a fraction of the six million Muslims in the country, the high rate of those purists among the 8000 Germans who have travelled to Syria to fight alongside ISIS has been enough to spark widespread raids of their prayer halls and homes over recent months.

Then in February this year a 16-year-old German-Moroccan girl stabbed a police officer in the neck with a kitchen knife in the name of ISIS while five months later there was an axe rampage on a train in the southern state of Bavaria that wounded five people.

Also in July a pregnant woman was killed in a knife attack, a shooting in Munich saw nine dead and 15 people were injured in a suicide bomb attack outside a wine bar in Ansbach with the 27-year-old bomber having earlier pledged allegiance to ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Some of the attackers were Middle East refugees, the influx of which has already polarised the nation.

This latest attack will harden the resolve of some and no doubt lead to the further rise of far-right and nationalist sentiment and likely ruin Merkel’s re-election ambitions in 2017.

Yesterday’s attacker is said be an asylum seeker from Afghanistan or Pakistan who came to the country earlier this year although this and or his motive has yet to be confirmed.

A firefighter attends a person injured during the Berlin Christmas market attack. Picture: AP

But German security chiefs have this year been at pains to warn citizens the traditional Christmas markets in cities and towns were vulnerable to attack and only this month heightened public awareness led to the detection of an ISIS radicalised 12-year-old German-Iraqi boy who attempted to suicide bomb a Christmas market and town hall in the town of Ludwigshafen.

In a separate incident this month, two other teenagers were arrested in northwest of the country as they armed themselves with ISIS flags and plotted an unspecified attack.

Even post the bloodshed in Nice, France, on Bastille Day where a jihadist ploughed his truck into Bastille Day celebrations nothing can prevent a jihadist for committing an act of terror but sadly in Germany the writing on the wall for such an attack has existed for sometime.

Originally published as Berlin Christmas market attack forecast by German security chiefs