German police arrested a refugee Wednesday who was planning to bomb the country on behalf of the Islamic State.
Cologne police said the 16-year-old Syrian refugee was radicalized within months of his arrival in Germany last year, reports The Wall Street Journal. He was allegedly planning a bomb attack.
“This shows how fast a radicalization can unfold,” Cologne police chief Jürgen Mathies said at a press conference announcing the refugee’s arrest. “The teenager changed his behavior drastically in only three months.”
Police didn’t reveal the refugee’s name, because of German privacy laws. A person linked to ISIS gave the refugee bomb-building instructions and tips on where to place them in order to have the most impact, police said. They discovered chat conversations on the teenager’s phone.
Although police found no indication the young man had purchased materials to begin building the bomb, he allegedly expressed “unmistakable readiness” to carry out a terror attack. His arrest follows a string of other recent arrests of refugees accused of plotting attacks, as the country grapples with the influx of more than a million refugees in just the past year.
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