German police have searched the homes of seven suspected Islamic extremists for allegedly funnelling vehicles to the Sunni militant group Islamic State (IS).
The raids -five in Bavaria and three in Lower Saxony and North Rhine Westphalia – amounted to one of the most expansive police actions since German authorities stepped up their campaign against supporters of Islamist fighters in the past year.
According to a spokesman for the interior ministry of the south German state of Bavaria, the seven suspects, aged between 23 and 36, weren’t arrested, but they are targets of an investigation on suspicion of “preparing a serious act of violent subversion.”
Bavarian officials said an ambulance the suspects were believed to have delivered for rebuilding into a fighting vehicle was purchased by contributions collected at benefit events. In addition, the suspects sent several off-road vehicles to IS fighters in Syria. Supporters in Germany of Islamist militants in the Middle East often justify their efforts on humanitarian grounds.
About 400 German nationals and residents have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join IS, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said earlier this month, as he announced a ban of the group’s activities in Germany.
On Friday, police in Berlin arrested a 30-year-old Turkish national who allegedly returned in August from an eight-month stint fighting with IS in Syria and was suspected of planning an attack in Germany, while on Monday, public prosecutors in the western German city of Düsseldorf announced charges against two women and a man accused of supporting IS by providing money and cameras for the production of propaganda videos.
