(Deutsche Welle) Sven Kurenbach still remembers the images of the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsing and the spontaneous minute of silence at the Berlin police department that followed. When Islamist terrorists weaponized passenger planes on September 11, 2001 — killing nearly 3,000 people — Kurenbach was still head of inspection for the Berlin police’s special units. Today he is Germany’s top investigator into jihadist activities.
Twenty years ago, Islamist terror was still largely an unknown for German security authorities, Kurenbach recalled recently at an event organized by “Mediendienst Integration” in Berlin. Just a dozen officers at the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) had been dealing with it.
Since 2019, Kurenbach has headed the newly established Islamist-Motivated Terrorism/Extremism Department of the BKA. Around 500 criminal investigators, scientists, translators, and analysts work there to investigate Islamists, monitor dangerous individuals, and try to prevent attacks. Just recently Germany arrested a major suspected fund-raiser for the “Islamic State.”
