Germany Faces Threat of Islamist Terror Attack Any Moment

Germany's domestic intelligence service said the threat level remains high.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has been receiving an increasingly high number of tipoffs about alleged Islamist terror plots, its chief said Wednesday, adding an attack was possible any time.

"The threat level in Germany remains high. Germany climbed notably higher on the list of Daesh targets during 2016," Hans-Georg Maassen, the president of the Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution (BfV), said.

Maassen said the Daesh terror group – outlawed in Germany, Russia and many other nations – has been increasing its capacity to carry out attacks on German soil, boosting its ranks to almost 1,600 members.

The German intelligence agency has been studying a significantly larger amount of information related to possible Islamist terrorism, with the number of tipoffs tripling since 2013. It received 20 pieces of confidential information on during the Christmas and New Year festive period alone.

Germany has been on edge after a string of Islamist-linked attacks last year, the deadliest being the truck-ramming of a Berlin Christmas market. The self-confessed Daesh member, Anis Amri, drove a stolen truck into a crowd, killing 12 people and injuring 48 others.