Modern Terrorists' Extreme Cruelty Separates Them From 70s-Era 'Romantics'

On Monday, a terrorist rammed a truck into a crowd at a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 and injuring nearly 50 others. Speaking to Sputnik about Islamist terrorists' "endless cruelty," German lawmaker Wolfgang Bosbach said that it is this cruelty that separates them from the radicals that plagued Europe during much of the late 20th century.

On Tuesday evening, German police released the sole suspect held in custody for Monday's attack on the Christmas market in downtown Berlin, saying they lacked sufficient evidence regarding his involvement. Police had earlier announced that a Pakistani national who had requested asylum in Germany was believed to be responsible for the attack.

Wolfgang Bosbach, a senior German lawmaker from Germany's ruling Christian Democratic Union party, has been one of the leaders of a group of MPs pushing Chancellor Angela Merkel to change her stance on immigration this past fall. Before the migrant crisis began, Bosbach made waves in 2013 after rejecting calls to give Muslims in the country two official holiday days for important Islamic religious occasions, saying Germany does not historically have an Islamic heritage.

A used suit of a forensic investigator lies on a Christmas tree where a truck ploughed through a crowded Christmas market killing 12 people in the west of Berlin, Germany, December 20, 2016

© REUTERS / Fabrizio Bensch

Speaking to Sputnik on Tuesday about the deadly Berlin attack, the politician suggested that there are differences between today's Islamist terrorists and those like the Red Army Faction which rocked West Germany in the 70s and 80s.

Specifically, Bosbach said, terrorists today are not only ready to commit any crime, but are "also ready to give up their own lives in order to kill others. There is a total lack of restraint, total ruthlessness and endless cruelty."

This, in the politician's view, separated modern terrorists from the 'romantics' of the late 20th century. "Here is the contrast between the current terror and that of the Red Army Faction in the 1970s and 1980s," he said. 

A file photo dated Sept. 5, 1977 shows the crime scene in Cologne, Germany, where German industrialists chairman Hanns-Martin Schleyer was kidnapped by members of the terrosrist group RAF (Red Army Faction)

© AP Photo / Heinz Ducklau

The Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, was one of several major terrorist groups operating in West Germany and throughout Europe during the Cold War, mostly engaging in bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and bank robberies.

Of course, that is not to say that Monday's attack was something completely new, Bosbach stressed. He recalled that two years ago, Daesh (ISIL/ISIS) representatives had made public threats to use cars and trucks as weapons. A similar truck attack took place in Nice, France earlier this year. This is a tactic that has thus become a modus operandi for terror in Europe, the politician noted.

Ultimately, the lawmaker said that Germany must now be prepared for a long and difficult struggle against the terrorist scourge. "We have to adjust [and prepare] for a very long and fierce fight." 

At the same time, Bosbach emphasized that more importantly than anything, Germans must not allow themselves to cave to terrorist pressure – must not allow terror to change the way they live their lives. "We should not close ourselves off, or hide from public events. We should not give up the open and joyful life, because the goal of the terrorists is to make us do just that."