A jailhouse interview with a German man who joined the Islamic State reveals the
workings of a unit whose lieutenants are empowered to plan attacks around the world.
workings of a unit whose lieutenants are empowered to plan attacks around the world.
BREMEN,
Germany — Believing he was answering a holy call, Harry Sarfo left his
home in the working-class city of Bremen last year and drove for four
straight days to reach the territory controlled by the Islamic State in
Syria.
He
barely had time to settle in before members of the Islamic State’s
secret service, wearing masks over their faces, came to inform him and
his German friend that they no longer wanted Europeans to come to Syria.
Where they were really needed was back home, to help carry out the
group’s plan of waging terrorism across the globe.
“He
was speaking openly about the situation, saying that they have loads of
people living in European countries and waiting for commands to attack
the European people,” Mr. Sarfo recounted on Monday, in an interview
with The New York Times conducted in English inside the maximum-security
prison near Bremen. “And that was before the Brussels attacks, before
the Paris attacks.”
The
masked man explained that, although the group was well set up in some
European countries, it needed more attackers in Germany and Britain, in
particular. “They said, ‘Would you mind to go back to Germany, because
that’s what we need at the moment,’” Mr. Sarfo recalled. “And they
always said they wanted to have something that is occurring in the same
time: They want to have loads of attacks at the same time in England and
Germany and France.”
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