(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Police launched dawn raids on about 190 mosques, flats and offices linked to an terrorist in Germany on Tuesday as the government banned the organization, accusing it of radicalising youngsters, the interior ministry said.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the DWR 'True Religion' organization had contacted young people as it distributed Korans and other religious material, and had persuaded about 140 of them to join militants in Iraq and Syria.
DWR made no reference to the raids on its website and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has faced pressure to harden her line on security after a string of attacks claimed by ISIS across Europe and criticism of her decision to let in about 900,000 migrants last year.
"Today's ban is not directed against the distribution of the Koran or translations of the Koran," de Maiziere told reporters.
"Today's ban is rather directed against the abuse of religion by people propagating extremist ideologies and supporting terrorist organizations under the pretext of Islam." The group had several hundred members, he added.
The widespread operation came a week after German authorities announced that they had arrested five men suspected of recruiting terrorists for ISIS.
In May, German intelligence services said that of a total of 820 nationals who had left Germany for Syria and Iraq to join ISIS and other terror groups, one-third had returned and 140 were killed abroad. An estimated 420 German militants remain in the two Arab countries.
Wahhabism, the radical ideology dominating Saudi Arabia, which is freely preached by its clerics, fuels the ideological engine of terror organizations like ISIS and Fateh al-Sham, al-Qaeda's Syrian branch formerly known as al-Nusra Front, which are wreaking havoc in Syria and Iraq.
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