German security forces detained a suspected terrorist, who was allegedly planning to carry out an attack on soldiers using a machete in the state of Bavaria, prosecutors said Friday.
A 27-year-old man from Syria with suspected terrorist leanings is accused of planning to kill soldiers with two machetes during their lunch break in the town of Hof, in north-eastern Bavaria.
The suspect had already bought the weapons but was detained on Thursday after police received a “tip-off from a witness close to the accused,” Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said.
The man is accused of planning a serious act of violent subversion and has been remanded in custody.
The plot comes weeks after a Syrian asylum seeker allegedly killed three people in the western German city of Solingen, reigniting debates on the country’s migration and deportation policies.
Herrmann said authorities are investigating whether the planned attack in Hof was linked to the incident in Solingen, with a counter-terrorist unit handling the case.
The interior minister said that the connections, the environment and the criminal history of the accused must first be clarified in more detail.
Authorities have “no concrete indications” of further plots, Herrmann said, but he warned that the danger of terrorist attacks has increased again throughout Europe since Oct. 7.
The Munich public prosecutor’s office said the suspect arrived in Germany 10 years ago and enjoys subsidiary protection, a status that applies to migrants who do not qualify as refugees but are recognized to face a risk of suffering serious harm if they return to their country of origin.
“The accused has no previous convictions,” prosecutors said, and there were no plans to deport him.
The local authorities said the man was renting a house in Hof, a town that hosts a technical reconnaissance unit of Germany’s Bundeswehr.
The mayor of Hof, Eva Döhla, thanked the police for their intervention and expressed her shock at the planned attack.
“There has never been anything like this in Hof before – living together with more than 48,000 people from 127 countries has always been peaceful, and we will do everything we can to ensure that this remains the case in the future,” she said.
“I am therefore wholeheartedly grateful to the police and security forces for their decisive action in preventing a terrible crime,” Döhla added.
