The April 2020 Islamic State Terror Plot Against U.S. and NATO Military Bases in Germany: The Tajik Connection.

• Author: Soliev, Nodirbek

An alleged terror plot by a Tajik Islamic State cell to attack U.S. and NATO military bases in Germany, which was thwarted by German police in April 2020, highlights the counterterrorism challenges posed by the radicalization of a small proportion of Central Asian migrants in Europe. It also demonstrates that despite its territorial defeat in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State retains the ambition and ability to generate plots by mobilizing clandestine cells in Europe. The arrested cell members developed contacts in transnational organized crime and became involved in unusual methods of fundraising, such as bounty hunting and murder-for-hire operations. The case sheds light on the evolving networking between Central Asian and Chechen radical and criminal elements in Europe.

In mid-April 2020, German authorities detained four Tajik nationals over an Islamic State-linked terror terrorist conspiracy to attack a variety of targets including U.S. and NATO military facilities and personnel stationed in the country. According to the Federal Public Prosecutor's Ofce, the arrested men were members of a terrorist cell that was in regular contact with two senior Islamic State militants--one of whom was based in Syria and the other in Afghanistan--from whom they received instructions. Allegedly, the cell members initially considered an attack in Tajikistan, but ultimately switched their focus to Germany after being convinced by their Islamic State contact and mentor in Syria, an operative known as "Abu Fatima," to "God willing, perform the jihad in the area where you are!" (1)

It is alleged Abu Fatima issued this order to the ringleader of the cell through a voice message sent through the messaging app Telegram before the ringleader was arrested in Germany in March 2019. (2) Reportedly, Islamic State "leadership" rejected a plan by the cell members to travel to Syria, and urged them to fight in Europe, describing it as a "place of evil." (3)

While the attacks were not planned for the immediate future, at the time of their arrest, the cell members had already allegedly ordered (but not yet received) bomb parts online, (a) and were stocking up on frearms, precursor chemicals, and ammunition. (4) Their alleged plan was to attack the U.S. air base in Spangdahlem and the NATO AWACS (b) air base near Geilenkirchen, (5) possibly with remote-controlled drones or paragliders armed with explosives. (6) The wife of one suspect had reportedly called a fight school in Bitburg, a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, which is about 12 kilometers away from the Geilenkirchen air base, and expressed her interest in attending paragliding courses. (7) (c) The plot against the air bases was just one of several attacks the group was plotting. As outlined below, the other plots reportedly included setting of a gas explosion in a specially rented residential apartment and two separate murderfor-hire operations in Albania and Germany.

It is alleged that in the course of their attack plotting, the cell members downloaded several bomb-making manuals from Telegram channels allegedly linked to the Islamic State. (8) With those manuals and the ammunition and detonators that they allegedly had already ordered online but had not yet received, they were exploring various ways of making and using homemade explosives for their alleged planned attack. (9) However, the plotters did not have sufficient skills and expertise on how to properly put together the necessary components. (10) In order to troubleshoot, they reportedly planned to conduct tests on their explosives in the deep forest once all the ingredients were available. (11)

It is alleged that the suspects were learning from the downloaded online manuals about how to carry out an assassination by poisoning and looked into chemical artillery shells and dropping munitions from drones. (12) Their online purchase orders reportedly included a gas pressure regulator and welding glue. (13) It was reported that the cell was planning to heed recent online propaganda calls by Islamic State leadership for supporters to carry out gas explosions in specially rented apartments and kill as many victims as possible. (14)

The arrestees are also accused of raising and channeling funds to the Islamic State's core organization in Syria. Motivated in part by this fundraising drive, the quartet had reportedly planned to assassinate Amir Masoud Arabpour, (15) an Iranian-born Christian convert 'vlogger' in the German North Rhine-Westphalia city of Neuss, whom they deemed to be a public critic of Islam. (16) Reportedly, the assassination plan was hatched to earn a bounty for the victim's murder by his Islamist enemies. (17) In addition, the cell members are suspected of conspiring with Russian-born Chechens from Austria (18) to murder a businessman in Albania for USD$40,000, which was offered by an unidentified person from Sweden. Ultimately, both alleged murder schemes failed. (19)

Four of the suspects, who have only been partially identified as Azizjon B., Muhammadali G., Farhodshoh K. and Sunatullokh K. in accordance with German legal tradition, were arrested in April 2020 during a series of raids conducted by tactical police units at multiple locations in the western German state of North Rhine Westphalia. (20) The counterterrorism operation, codenamed "Takim," (21) involved as many as 350 police officers (22) (Since then, the plotters have been referred by German authorities as the "Takim cell." (23)) Around two weeks later, Albanian security agencies arrested another Tajik citizen, Komron Zukhurov, in Tirana and subsequently deported him to Germany under an international arrest warrant issued by a German federal court in connection with his alleged involvement in the terror plot. (24) On September 22, 2020, the alleged ringleader was brought before the Higher Regional Court in Dusseldorf to start trial proceedings, with a verdict expected in late January 2021. The other defendants are set to be tried in a different procedure. (25)

Commenting on the thwarted plot in an interview published in the August 2020 issue of this publication, the European Union's Counter-terrorism Coordinator Gilles de Kerchove stated that "this plot shows, once again, that we should remain vigilant about the threat of Daesh [Islamic State] attacks in Europe and that the threat does not come only from individuals who are inspired by terrorist propaganda online and act independently. Daesh continues to seek contact with potential attackers in Europe whenever it spots an opportunity to do so, to guide them in their attack plans." (26)

There are several interesting aspects of the disrupted Islamic State plotting in Germany that are worth analyzing. But, as this article will outline, the most striking feature is that the attack cell in Germany was allegedly operating under the guidance of the same Tajik and Russian Islamic State senior operatives who authorized and directed the April 2017 truck-ramming attack in the Swedish capital of Stockholm from their hideouts in Syria. A more detailed study of the Stockholm attack and the Central Asian threat nexus can be found in an article published by Damon Mehl in the November 2018 issue of this publication. (27)

Similar to the Stockholm case, the suspects in this recent set of arrests were Tajik-speaking Central Asian migrants (d) who had been residing in Germany for quite a while, with no travel history to Conflict zones. Although the attack plans in Germany were discovered and thwarted successfully, the attack in Sweden, unfortunately, was not prevented.

Drawing on a wide range of local and foreign news sources as well as German court documents and reports about trial proceedings, this article provides a case study of the Takim cell by first examining the links between the alleged cell and Islamic State operatives in Syria and Afghanistan. It then analyzes the alleged cell's pathway to terror, its links to previous terrorist activity within Germany, and the extremist environment in which the Tajik cell emerged and operated. Next, the article looks at the likely reasons why Germany was the target of the plot. The article then examines the alleged cell's transnational web of jihadi and criminal contacts and its alleged attempts to finance its activities by involving itself in contract killing. The article concludes by highlighting how the Islamic State is eyeing Muslim migrant communities to expand its presence and fundraising activities across Europe.

Links to Islamic State Operatives in Syria and Afghanistan

The alleged ringleader of the Tajik Cell was arrested more than a year before the others. German prosecutors reportedly believe a Tajik national, identified by Radio Free Europe as "Ravshan Boqiev," was the leader of the cell and a contact person between the cell and the Islamic State. (28) The 30-year-old Boqiev has been in pre-trial custody since police discovered two frearms in his apartment in the city of Wuppertal on March 15, 2019. (29) Prior to his arrest, he had reportedly downloaded several bomb-making manuals from Islamic State-related channels on Telegram and distributed them to his accomplices. (30) (e)

According to the author's review of German court documents and various news reports on the case, it appears that much of the plotting had already come together by the time of Boqiev's arrest. However, in mid-March 2019, investigators reportedly knew only part of the cell's structure, plans, and its connections. (31) German authorities stated that many details about the Takim cell and their plotting were revealed to them after Boqiev began to cooperate with investigators in December 2019. (32) They also managed to extract significant data from Boqiev's personal mobile phone, including audio and text messages that he exchanged with Abu Fatima and others, as Boqiev had not been able to delete them before his arrest. (33) After Boqiev's arrest and subsequent police investigations of...