According to reports, more than 60 Islamists from Germany are active in the contested Syrian province of Idlib. Chat protocols show that they worked with, among others, the former Al Qaeda subsidiary Hajat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), according to research by the Südwestrundfunk (SWR) and the ARD studio Cairo in Egypt.
The SWR reported today that the Islamists carried out propaganda for “jihad” in Syria in messenger services such as Telegram. Propaganda videos also solicit donations from Germany. Among other things, the money should be sent to Syria via the cryptocurrency Bitcoin.
Authorities are alarmed
According to the report, German security authorities already have these donations on their radar. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution said that it had knowledge of online actors close to German-speaking al-Qaeda who regularly called for emigration to Syria and financial support for „jihad“.
The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) said it had been observing cryptocurrencies in the context of terrorist financing “intensively for a long time”. Cryptocurrencies generally had „due to their high degree of anonymity an increased risk of being used not only for money laundering but also for terrorist financing purposes“.
Idlib is the last stronghold of Islamist rebels in Syria. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is determined to regain control of the region. Its main ally is Russia, while Turkey supports the rebels in the conflict.
