German police launched a major operation on Thursday, with 54 searches in seven regions, against an Islamist center suspected of supporting the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, the Interior Ministry announced.
“At a time when many Jews feel particularly threatened, we will not tolerate Islamic propaganda or anti-Semitic and anti-Israel campaigns.”Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement.
The police operation targets the ‘Hamburg Islamic Center’ and five other organizations suspected of being linked to it.
Germany considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization and banned its activities in the country in April 2020.
The searches target 54 properties in different regions of Germany.
The center’s activities are aimed at spreading the ‘revolutionary concept’ of the Iranian mullahs (trained in Islamic theology), “suspected of violating the constitutional order in Germany”is added in the same note.
The center controls the Imam Ali Mosque in Hamburg. German domestic intelligence services suspect that he “exerts strong influence” from that mosque on other mosques and associations, “until total control is taken over,” the Interior Ministry said.
Within this movement, “there are clear anti-Semitic and anti-Israel tendencies that are also propagated through various media channels,” he added.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged a week ago to protect Germany’s Jews at the commemoration of the 85th anniversary of the Nazi pogrom (persecution) of Broken Night, in a context of a resurgence of anti-Semitic acts since the start of the war between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas, early October.
Germany and many other countries also fear that the conflict in the Middle East will flare up again through Hezbollah, especially in Lebanon.
Since the start of the war, there have been clashes between Hezbollah and Israel in the border area between the two countries.
Source: DN
