Grave Situation: Migration, Integration, and Attacks in Germany

By Robert Richer

Robert Richer served as a former Associate Deputy Director for Operations at the CIA.  He retired in 2005 and before his retirement he also served as Chief of the Near East and South Asia Division, responsible for Clandestine Service Operations throughout the Middle East and South Asia. Mr. Richer currently consults on Middle East and national security issues and is a senior partner with International Advisory Partners.

Germany has been hit by four attacks in the past week, three involving refugees. Last Monday, a 17-year-old refugee thought to be from Afghanistan injured a handful of people with an axe and knife on a train near Würzburg. On Friday, 18-year-old Ali Sonboly – born in Germany to Iranian parents – was identified by authorities as the person who shot and killed nine people and injured more than 20 around a shopping mall in Munich. And on Sunday, a 21-year-old Syrian refugee killed a woman and injured two others with a machete in Reutlingen, while hours later another Syrian refugee – a 27-year-old – killed himself and injured a dozen others after setting off an explosive device outside a music festival in Ansbach. The Cipher Brief’s Kaitlin Lavinder spoke with Robert Richer, former CIA Associate Deputy Director for Operations, about these latest attacks, the influx of refugees in Europe, and German immigration policy moving forward.

TCB: Three assailants involved in attacks in Germany over the past week – in Würzburg, Reutlingen, and Ansbach – were refugees. The shooter in the Munich attack on Friday was not a refugee, but was from an Iranian-German family (his parents immigrated to Germany in the 1990s). How much is the recent influx of migration from the Middle East to Germany affecting the security situation in Germany?

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