Five Tajiks charged over membership in IS cell in Germany

Germany has charged five Tajik men with membership of an Islamic State terror cell that recruited members and planned attacks on German soil, prosecutors said Monday.

The five men charged on February 1, named as Farhodshoh K., Muhammadali G., Azizjon B., Sunatullokh K. and Komron B., are accused of having various roles in the cell, founded in January 2019. A sixth member of the same cell, Ravsan B., was sentenced to seven years in jail in January after being prosecuted separately.

"The aim of the cell members, who were in contact with IS leaders in Syria and Afghanistan, was to take up the armed struggle against what they saw as 'infidels' and to commit attacks in Germany," the indictment said.

According to prosecutors, the attacks included US army bases in Germany.

The men allegedly circulated in the same circles as the Tajik-born perpetrator behind the Stockholm truck attack of April 2017, as well as the Macedonian-Austrian national who gunned down four people in Vienna in November.

The group allegedly held training sessions, including paintball games, attended by members of the Islamist scene who had contact with the Vienna attacker. They also ordered bomb parts online and stocked up on firearms and ammunition.

One of them, Azizjon B., is said to have been involved in the same online network used to recruit the Stockholm attacker and is accused of being a member of IS since at least March 2017, carrying out instructions from high-ranking leaders in Afghanistan from Germany.

He also allegedly recruited members for IS in Germany, leading to the founding of the cell in January 2019.

Farhodshoh K. and Ravsan B. are accused of accepting a $40,000 contract to assassinate a businessman in Albania, although the plan failed and they returned to Germany.

Ravsan B. is then said to have handed over the intended murder weapon to Sunatullokh K., who was supposed to use it to kill the operator of an Islam-critical YouTube channel, after they had begun spying on the intended victim.