German Authorities Arrest Libyan Man Suspected of Planning ISIS Attack on Israeli Embassy

Police officers escort a Libyan national with suspected ties to the extremist group Islamic State who was allegedly planning an attack on the Israeli Embassy in Berlin, in Karlsruhe, Germany, Oct. 20, 2024. Rene Priebe/dpa via AP

A suspected supporter of the ISIS terrorist group was arrested before he could carry out an attack on the Israeli embassy in Berlin, Germany authorities said.

The suspect, identified only as “Omar A.,” is a Libyan national accused of supporting ISIS’s ideology, the office of the Federal Prosecutor General, Germany’s equivalent of the Attorney General, said in a statement. He was detained on Oct. 19 in Bernau, a suburb of Berlin.

To plan a “high-profile attack with firearms,” Omar A. had allegedly been exchanging information with an ISIS terrorist via messenger chat, according to the statement.

Israel’s ambassador to Germany Ron Prosor condemned the alleged plot, warning that anti-Semitic rhetoric among some Muslim communities “leads to and encourages terrorist activities worldwide.”

Israeli embassies were “on the front line of the diplomatic battlefield,” Prosor wrote on X in response to the arrest.

German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann echoed these concerns, saying there is a “very serious threat” of Islamist extremism in his country.

“Israeli facilities are particularly often the target of terrorists,” Buschmann wrote on X, pointing to last month’s shooting near the Israeli consulate in Munich, during which an 18-year-old Austrian national opened fire at the Israeli consulate and a nearby museum documenting the city’s Nazi past before police officers shot and killed him.

German authorities are investigating whether the Munich attack was driven by terrorist or anti-Semitic motives, since it took place on Sept. 5, the 52nd anniversary of the massacre of 11 members of Israel’s Olympic team during the 1972 Summer Games in Munich. Austrian authorities have also said that the perpetrator was known to have been “religiously radicalized.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, meanwhile, took the Oct. 19 arrest as an opportunity to urge the Bundesrat—the upper chamber of the German parliament—to approve his legislative package aimed at countering Islamic extremism and tightening the country’s asylum system.

Part of the security package was approved by the lower chamber of the German parliament, the Bundestag, on Friday.

The package of laws seeks to implement fast-track deportations for foreigners convicted of serious crimes. It would also make it a deportable offense to publicly express approval of terrorism, including posting or “liking” pro-terrorist content on social media.

The package proposes stricter measures for asylum seekers, such as reducing social benefits for those who had previously been registered in another EU country. Refugees returning to their home country, except in cases like attending a parent’s funeral, could also lose their protection.

There are also measures that would toughen Germany’s already strict weapon laws. For example, a provision would ban knives at festivals, sports events, and other public events, with exceptions in the catering sector.

Scholz proposed the changes in the wake of two separate knife attacks by suspected Islamist extremists that claimed four lives.

In one case in May, an Afghan immigrant fatally stabbed a police officer in Mannheim at a rally organized by counter-jihad group Pax Europa. In the second, a Syrian asylum seeker, who had pledged allegiance to ISIS, killed three people and injured eight others in Solingen’s market square in August.