Alwaght- The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has expressed concern about the threat posed by ISIS terrorists' family members returning to the country from Syria and Iraq.
"There are children who have been brainwashed and highly radicalized at 'schools' in ISIS-held areas. It's a problem for us because many of these kids and teenagers can sometimes be dangerous,” Hans-Georg Maassen warned Sunday in an interview with the Deutsche Presse Agentur (dpa) news agency, as cited by Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Massen added that women returning to Germany from ISIS strongholds "had become so radicalized and identify so deeply with ISIS-ideology that, by all accounts, they must also be identified as terrorists."
ISIS terrorist group launched its insurgency, which sought to carve out its own caliphate in Iraq and Syria, in 2014. However last month Iraqi and Syrian forces assisted by local and regional allies liberated the last cities held by the terrorists and effectively ended the brutal reign of terror of ISIS across the region.
According to official estimates, 950 German terrorists, 20 percent of whom were female, joined the ranks of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Roughly one third of these 950 German fighters have already returned home, the majority of whom are women and children.
"We haven't seen any significant flows of male fighters returning home," Maassen said. "We assume that Westerners still fighting with ISIS to this day intend to stay there until the very end, and will only then seek to settle in Europe once again."
