German intelligence warns of ISIL ‘hit squads’ among refugees

                                       By Joshua Posaner


Official says country has to accept it is home to terror ‘sleeper cells.’


German intelligence services have evidence that “hit squads” from the Islamic State terror group have infiltrated the country disguised as refugees, the deputy head of Bavaria’s spy agency told the BBC Thursday.
“We have to accept that we have hit squads and sleeper cells in Germany,” Manfred Hauser, the vice president of the Bavaria region’s intelligence gathering agency, BayLfV, told the Today program.

“We have substantial reports that among the refugees there are hit squads. There are hundreds of these reports, some from refugees themselves. We are still following up on these, and we haven’t investigated all of them fully,” said Hauser.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière will present a set of new security measures in Berlin on Thursday, following recent attacks in the country inspired by ISIL.


On July 18, five people were injured on a train near the city of Würzburg in Bavaria by an axe-wielding attacker. Less than a week later 15 people were injured during a suicide bombing attack outside a bar in Ansbach, also located in Bavaria.
Hauser said intelligence services have “irrefutable evidence that there is an IS command structure in place,” making a coordinated attack, similar to those seen in Paris last November and Brussels in March, “likely.”
Bavaria has been the main gateway for asylum seekers fleeing conflict in the Middle East, over 1 million of whom arrived in Germany in 2015.