Islamist Russian national in Germany charged for plotting attack on Israeli embassy in Berlin

German prosecutors on Wednesday revealed that they have charged a Russian citizen for plotting a terrorist attack against the Israeli embassy in Berlin. The suspect who is publicly only known as “Akhmad E.," is a radicalized Muslim who reportedly tried to join the terrorist network Islamic State. Russia is home to a large Muslim minority. 

"From the beginning of February, he planned to carry out an attack in Germany, for example on the Israeli embassy in Berlin," the German federal prosecutors said in an official statement.

The terror suspect reportedly received instructions online how to construct explosives. However, the terror plot failed because he did not succeed in securing the components needed for the bomb. 

German authorities revealed that the suspect has been detained since his arrest in February at Berlin’s airport by local police. Prosecutors believe he intended to undergo military training at an ISIS camp in Pakistan. He reportedly financed the planned trip through the illicit sale of expensive smartphones.

The German prosecutors also revealed that the suspect is charged for translating ISIS propaganda content into Russian and Chechen. 

Anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiments have increased dramatically in Germany since the Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

Germany registered 8,627 antisemitic incidents in 2024, constituting a 77% increase compared to 2023 according to the antisemitism watchdog NGO RIAS. 

Benjamin Steinitz, the executive director of RIAS, articulated concerns about the development. 

"We have never witnessed such a high number of antisemitic attacks against Jews in a single calendar year," Steinitz warned. 

Given its Nazi past, German authorities are particularly concerned about antisemitism from the far-right and neo-Nazi fringe. However, the RIAS report found that roughly two-thirds of anti-Jewish incidents were categorized as “Israel-related antisemitism.” In Germany, as in other Western societies, radicalized Muslims and far-left activists have played a leading role in spreading this Israel-linked Jew-hatred. 

Germany is currently home to some 100,000 Jews including thousands of Israelis, making it the third largest Jewish community in Europe after France and the United Kingdom. The surge in anti-Semitic incidents in Germany is closely linked to recent years’ mass immigration from Muslim-majority countries where antisemitism is endemic. 

Realizing the problem, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser announced last year that Germany would make citizenship conditional on education about Israel, Jews, and the Holocaust.

“Whoever does not share our values, cannot receive a German passport. We have drawn a crystal-clear red line,” Faeser said in an official statement.

“Antisemitism, racism, and other forms of contempt for humanity rule out naturalization,” Faeser emphasized in an interview with the local newspaper Der Spiegel. 

While German authorities are actively fighting antisemitism, local Jews are feeling threatened and keep a low profile, especially after the Oct. 7 attack. 

The German news outlet Bild reported in February that Jews in Berlin increasingly hide their religious and ethnic identity in public due to fears of antisemitism. 

"This threat to Jewish life seems to have reached a new dimension, not only in Berlin, which has led to great uncertainty among our community members," Berlin’s Jewish community spokesperson Ilan Kiesling told Bild.