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Far-right groups, radical Islamists pose greater threat: German police
Last Updated: 2017-07-24 09:53 | Xinhua
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Left-wing extremists do not pose a serious terrorist threat to society in Germany, Holger Muench, chief of the Federal Criminal Police, told the newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau on Friday.

There was only a small number of individuals within the far-left political scene which authorities suspected of plotting terrorist attacks.

"On the left spectrum, the estimates from the federal states currently amount to a number that could be counted with one hand," Muench said.

According to Muench, this circumstance stood in contrast with a substantially greater number of potentially violent right-wing extremists and Islamic religious fundamentalists.

Muench estimated that there was a low two-digit number of potentially violent right wing extremists in Germany. "Unlike with politically left-motivated crime, however, we do see a risk that terrorist structures could form [among right-wing extremists]," Muench told the newspaper.

Recent immigration, including the arrival of more than one million refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in Germany since 2015, had visibly contributed to a radicalization of far-right groups. "The immense number of offenses against refugee accommodation centers in the years 2015 and 2016 underline [this trend]," the official said.

Muench called for rapid police action in such cases. Security authorities in Germany had previously been criticized for carrying out a prolonged investigation into the neo-Nazi group "National Socialist Underground" (NSU) during which members thereof committed a string of murders.

Nevertheless, Islamist offenders were the biggest risk to society identified by the Federal Criminal Police.

According to Muench, authorities currently count 690 individuals in the category. The number of radical Islamists in Germany is hence on the rise, up from 616 in March 2017 and 549 in December 2016.

Muench's views on left-wing extremists differ from those offered by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).

Although the intelligence service does not identify violent offenders of such in its analysis, it believes that left-wing extremism as a political phenomenon is on the rise.

BfV president Hans-Georg Maassen has warned of a "very strong left-extremist scene" in the wake of violent protests during the recent Hamburg G20 summit. According to Maassen, this group includes 28,000 individuals of which 8,500 are potentially violent.

Left-extremists were increasingly willing to use violence against political opponents and the police, a trend which was also noticeable among far-right activists and Islamic fundamentalists.

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