A Look At How The Islamic State Built A Global Network Of Terrorists

Harry Sarfo, a former Islamic State fighter from Germany, inside the maximum-security prison in Bremen where he is serving a three-year sentence on terrorism charges. Credit Gordon Welters for The New York Times

Rukmini Callimachiaug, New York Times: How a Secretive Branch of ISIS Built a Global Network of Killers

A jailhouse interview with a German man who joined the Islamic State reveals the workings of a unit whose lieutenants are empowered to plan attacks around the world.

BREMEN, Germany — Believing he was answering a holy call, Harry Sarfo left his home in the working-class city of Bremen last year and drove for four straight days to reach the territory controlled by the Islamic State in Syria.

He barely had time to settle in before members of the Islamic State’s secret service, wearing masks over their faces, came to inform him and his German friend that they no longer wanted Europeans to come to Syria. Where they were really needed was back home, to help carry out the group’s plan of waging terrorism across the globe.

“He was speaking openly about the situation, saying that they have loads of people living in European countries and waiting for commands to attack the European people,” Mr. Sarfo recounted on Monday, in an interview with The New York Times conducted in English inside the maximum-security prison near Bremen. “And that was before the Brussels attacks, before the Paris attacks.”

The masked man explained that, although the group was well set up in some European countries, it needed more attackers in Germany and Britain, in particular. “They said, ‘Would you mind to go back to Germany, because that’s what we need at the moment,’” Mr. Sarfo recalled. “And they always said they wanted to have something that is occurring in the same time: They want to have loads of attacks at the same time in England and Germany and France.”

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WNU Editor: More proof the Islamic State has used its safe havens in the Middle East to plot and implement terror attacks around the world, and that their support networks in certain Western countries are far more deeper and extensive than what Western governments have been saying.