Germany to step up efforts to change Islamist radicals' views

Berlin - Germany is to set a new focus on persuading radical "home-grown" Islamists who are flirting with terrorism to moderate their views, according to the news magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday. The efforts are to be directed mainly at people who have been raised in Germany, both converts to Islam of German parentage and German-schooled Muslims whose parents were immigrants.

Currently, several of the 16 states have programs to "deradicalize" those who approve of violence in the name of religion.

The state efforts range from writing comic books that set out a message opposed to terrorism to personal approaches to the radicals by government officials.

In a report to appear in its issue to appear Monday, Der Spiegel said a "forum" was being set up next month at a national anti-terrorism agency, the Joint Anti-Terrorism Centre, in Berlin to coordinate those efforts.

It said the 16 states would also discuss this week how to prevent persons serving jail time for terrorist offenses from recruiting other prisoners to their cause. Der Spiegel said Germany would ask moderate Islamic communities and clergy to speak to them.

Prisons and sports clubs were common places for spreading radical ideas, another news magazine, Focus,reported Saturday.

It said police knew of 185 German-raised Islamists who received training in terrorism methods in central Asia, Afghanistan or Pakistan over the past decade, and about 90 men with such military training were currently living in Germany.

Focus said police believed 30 of the radicals in Germany had had actual battle experience in clashes with Pakistani or US forces.