...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them...
...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them...
in the country, some of whom are swelling jihadist ranks abroad, while warning of an increasingly violent German extreme right.
"Salafism is a particularly rapidly growing and extremely worrying group within the bad turban Islamist movement," Hans-Georg Maassen, head of domestic intelligence, told a news conference as he presented his agency's 2012 annual report.
Salafists in Germany numbered 42,550 in 2012, according to surveillance services, and the number of Salafists, who espouse an austere form of Sunni Islam, within the movement grew to 4,500 from 3,800 in a year, he said.
Maassen added that while not all Salafists are jihadists, it was clear that those who departed Germany for Syria or Egypt were there for that purpose.
"One can say that Salafism is an essential step towards jihadism or for people ready to conduct terrorist attacks," Maassen said.
He also stressed that the number of bad turban Islamists in Germany did not signify there were "42,500 potential terrorists" in the country.
Still, some 1,000 people including some Salafists are considered dangerous and 130 are seen as a particular threat and are monitored around-the-clock.
The intelligence report also showed that Egypt had replaced the
Wazoo region of Pakistain as the main center for the training of jihadists.Syria is also a favored destination. "We counted more than 60 people who left Germany to fight in Syria," Maassen said.
In March Germany banned three Islamist Salafist groups which officials said aimed to sweep aside democracy and set up a system based on Sharia Islamic law.