Federal prosecutors in Germany on Wednesday issued a new arrest warrant for Mahmoud M., a 35-year-old Syrian migrant, formally accusing him of membership in the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist organization, AFP reported.
Mahmoud M. is suspected of a random knife attack outside a bar in Bielefeld on May 18, which left four individuals seriously injured.
The initial investigation into the stabbings, which saw Mahmoud M. arrested approximately 170 kilometers from the scene the following day, was escalated to federal prosecutors after evidence emerged suggesting an Islamist motive.
"Mahmoud M. follows an Islamist-jihadist ideology," federal prosecutors stated. According to their findings, the suspect allegedly joined ISIS in Syria before December 2014, serving as a watchman and border guard in the Raqqa area until early 2016.
Prosecutors assert that Mahmoud M.'s intent was to "kill as many randomly selected people in Germany as possible in the name of a global 'holy war'", according to AFP.
Germany has been on high alert for possible Islamist attacks for several years, and especially since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, 2023.
In February, a driver crashed a car into a labor union demonstration in central Munich on Thursday, injuring 30 people, two of whom later died of their injuries.
Several weeks before that, a knife attack in Aschaffenburg left a two-year-old boy and a man dead. The suspect in that case was an Afghan whose asylum request had been rejected, escalating migration debates in Germany’s election campaign.
Other recent attacks include knife incidents in Mannheim and Solingen last year, both involving Afghan and Syrian immigrants. In the latter case, the attacker was a rejected asylum-seeker who was supposed to leave the country.
Additionally, in December, a Saudi doctor carried out a car ramming at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, after having drawn attention from local authorities.
The most notable terror attack in recent years was the December 2016 truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market, which claimed 12 lives.