"The German Bundestag is now discussing a legal package to better combat international terrorism, including harsher prosecution and more effective curbs on terrorism financing," Wolfgang Bosbach of Germany's lower house of Parliament, or Bundestag, said.
The initiatives would prevent German would-be jihadists from traveling to conflict zones in Syria and Iraq, Bosbach went on, adding that his government had adopted a raft of measures to roll back the rise of terrorist activities by the Islamic State (ISIL) militant group.
The ISIL made rapid advances across Syria and Iraq, seizing larges areas of land in summer 2014. However, the German lawmaker ruled out ISIL influence as prompting Berlin to tighten Middle East migrant regulations. He stressed that, quite the opposite, the parliament was looking at "new migration opportunities."
Security in Germany was tightened in early 2015 following a string of Islamist attacks in French and Danish capitals. Germany's Die Zeit daily reported last week that Justice Minister Heiko Maas introduced a security bill that would allow storing the phone and Internet data of German citizens for up to ten weeks over security concerns.
