Cologne Police Arrest ISIS ‘Sleeper Agent’ Plotters

Cologne Police have arrested two men linked to the Islamic State, who may have been plotting terror attacks.

The suspected jihadists are said to have travelled to Syria from November to December of 2013 where the Federal prosecutor says that both men joined the Islamic state to wage jihad against the government of Bashar Assad.

The prosecutor reports the 25 year old man travelled to Syria in the autumn months of 2013, according to Spiegel on-line. He did not immediately join the Islamic state upon getting to Syria but rather joined a militia called “Junud al-sham” where he was to undergo combat training so that he could take up guard duties with the group.

Later on the man would change his allegiance to the Islamic state. He received more training from ISIS who, according to German authorities, taught him how to commit acts of terrorism with the goal of sending him back to Germany as a sleeper agent ready to attack Europe when called on to do so. In December of 2013 he headed back to Germany.

The arrests of the men come after the federal prosecutors office accused three other men of being directly linked to the Islamic state in October of last year in Düsseldorf. The three men were brought before a court of appeal last month.

The men in that case were also in Syria around the same time and left shortly after though all of the men accused were part of the “Junud al-sham” organization before they were members of the Islamic state. It is unclear whether they knew each other but it is likely that police questioning of the suspects in Düsseldorf led to the information which in turn led to the arrests of the two men in Cologne.

Agents of the Islamic State have been warned about by many right wing politicians since the start of the migrant crisis and Breitbart has reported on stories involving Islamic State militants sneaking into Europe.

Along with an ISIS commander who was found to be living in a migrant centre in rural Germany, two North African men were discovered in a migrant centre who also had direct links to ISIS. The domestic intelligence service in Germany has said the group found in a migrant home were planning a “serious act threatening the security of the state”. At least one of those arrested is said to have direct ties to Belgium where many of the Paris attackers had originated in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek.