Islamist-motivated attackers in Germany often choose knives as their weapon of choice because firearms are harder to obtain, a leading expert from the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) told media group Funke.
“Even during raids and searches, we very rarely find assault rifles or firearms,” said Sven Kurenbach, the head of the BKA department that focuses on Islamist-motivated terrorism and extremism.
“It is different in France or Belgium, where Islamist terrorists have repeatedly used firearms,” Kurenbach said.
The crucial factor, he said, is that access to weapons in Germany is much more strictly regulated.
“Moreover, firearms – even on the illegal black market – are not cheap and the – often young – Islamist perpetrators usually have few financial resources.”
Kurenbach went on to say that researchers are now more successful in getting terrorist propaganda removed from the internet due to regulations requiring platforms to quickly remove such content. The average removal rate is around 90%.”
From our point of view, this is an extremely good result,” he told the media group.
However, Kurenbach also called on operators to adjust their algorithms.
“This is because the platforms’ algorithms often repeatedly bring new jihadist content to the profile pages of young users once they have shown interest in it,” the expert explains.
“In extreme cases, anyone interested in bomb-making components will see new and cheaper offers.”
