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Europe & Terrorism Paranoia: Munich Attack Shows Strength of Fear

Posted: July 24th, 2016

Tweeters, journalists, politicians, even the security forces in Germany responded on Friday to an “extremist terror” attack in Munich, fearing it was inspired by the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL), only to discover later that the attacker – 18-year-old Ali David Sonboly, born in Germany to Iranian parents – was a psychologically disturbed individual with no apparent ties to Islamic extremism. 

“There’s a general paranoia because of these [ISIS-inspired] attacks that’s now not only in society, but also in the groups of journalists and intellectuals. […] People assumed it [the Munich attack] must be a terrorist attack. So you can see this sort of background paranoia, even among those like journalists, who speculated about the event based on hearsay before the police issued an official statement,” Philipp Hübl told The Cipher Brief.

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

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