A 27-year-old Syrian man who was arrested in Hof, Germany, on Sept. 12,2024, is accused of planning a machete attack on German soldiers during their lunch break. The German military barracks in Hof are about an hour away from two U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria installations. (German Federal Police)
A Syrian man is suspected of planning a lunchtime machete attack against German soldiers from a barracks in Bavaria that is about an hour away from two major U.S. Army installations, the General Prosecutor’s Office in Munich said Friday.
He was arrested Thursday in Hof, home to the German military’s Upper Franconia barracks. It houses about 550 soldiers as well as the Central Investigation Office for Technical Reconnaissance, where the German military develops new electromagnetic surveillance technology.
The town in far northeastern Bavaria, near the Czech border, is in an administrative region neighboring the U.S. military’s Grafenwoehr Training Area and Vilseck base.
The 27-year-old man, who has not been identified in accordance with German privacy laws, is still in police custody. The formal accusation against him is preparing a serious violent act endangering the state.
He acquired two machetes and intended to attack soldiers during their lunch breaks in downtown Hof to incite public fear, authorities said in a statement.
American military officials in Bavaria did not immediately respond to a question about whether there was any indication of danger to U.S. troops stationed in the region.
The arrest comes on the heels of recent violence elsewhere in Germany.
Last week, an 18-year-old Austrian with Bosnian roots who law enforcement officials said had known Islamist connections fired several shots at the Israeli Consulate general in Munich. He was killed in a shootout with police.
On Aug. 23, a mass stabbing at a festival in Solingen, in the west-central state of North Rhine-Westphalia, left three dead and eight injured. German authorities linked the suspect, also a Syrian man, to “radical Islamist convictions.”
