The German police launched a major operation this 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 do not tolerate Islamist propaganda or anti-Semitic and anti-Israel campaigns,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement.
The police operation targets the “Islamic Center Hamburg” and five other organizations suspected of being linked.
Germany considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization and banned its activities in the country in April 2020.
The searches focus on 54 properties in different regions of Germany.
The center’s activities aim to spread the “revolutionary concept” of the Iranian mullahs (trained in Islamic theology), “suspected of being contrary to the constitutional order in Germany,” he adds in the same note.
The center controls the Imam Ali mosque in Hamburg. German internal intelligence services suspect that “exercising strong influence” from that mosque on other mosques and associations, “until taking total control,” the Interior Ministry stated.
Within this movement, “there are clear anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli tendencies that are also spread through various communication channels,” he added.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised to protect Jews in Germany as he commemorated the 85th anniversary of the Nazi Broken Night pogrom (persecution) a week ago, amid a resurgence of anti-Semitic acts since the start of the war between Israel and the Movement. Islamist Hamas, at the beginning of October.
Germany and many other countries also fear that the conflict in the Middle East will be reignited, particularly in Lebanon, through Hezbollah.
Since the beginning of the war, clashes have occurred between Hezbollah and Israel in the border area between both countries.
Source: TSF
