Germany probing possible foreign influence in spate of attacks

BERLIN — Germany said Monday it was investigating potential foreign influence in a series of recent attacks after a media report alleged that actors in Russia may have played a role in some of them.

The spate of attacks blamed on asylum seekers over the past 12 months, including stabbings and car-rammings, led to a bitter debate on migration ahead of EU elections last year and in the run-up to Germany's general election in February.

In one case, an Afghan man is on trial over a stabbing spree at an anti-Islam rally in the city of Mannheim last May that killed a police officer and wounded several other people.

Public broadcaster ZDF on Sunday reported that Russian online accounts had carried out searches about the Mannheim attack before it actually happened.

An interior ministry spokesman on Monday did not want to comment on the ZDF report but said the government was investigating "possible indications of targeted influence from abroad" in relation to the attacks and that the matter was "being taken seriously".

German security authorities are carrying out "ongoing checks", he said, although there were "no clear indications" of foreign influence so far.

According to the ZDF report, Russian accounts carried out searches for "terrorist attack in Mannheim" four days before the stabbing.

Other search queries from Russia ahead of the incident reportedly included "attack in Germany" and "Michael Stuerzenberger" -- the name of a prominent Islam critic who was wounded in Mannheim.

The report also said suspicious online activity had been identified in the run-up to a fire caused by an exploding DHL parcel at Leipzig airport in July.

Anonymous security sources told the Funke media group on Monday that "due to the algorithms, no reliable statements can be made about when exactly the search queries about the attack in Mannheim were made".

However, Greens MP and security expert Konstantin von Notz told ZDF that "it's quite obvious that... the evaluation and analysis of this digital evidence can be an important building block in getting closer to the truth".

Dirk Wiese, a politician with Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD), said the spate of similar attacks in the run-up to the February election was "very conspicuous".

"Russia's involvement is anything but ruled out here," he said.