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Germany to Launch New Anti-Terrorism Policies after Repeated Attacks


Police stand outside where a 21-year-old Syrian refugee killed a woman with a machete and injured two other people in the city of Reutlingen, Germany, July 24, 2016.
Police stand outside where a 21-year-old Syrian refugee killed a woman with a machete and injured two other people in the city of Reutlingen, Germany, July 24, 2016.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere is set to announce several new measures aimed at curbing terrorism after Islamic State claimed two attacks in the country last month.

According to local media reports, the new policies will allow the deportation of migrants for being a “threat to public security,” speed up the deportation process of migrants convicted of crimes and allow doctors to break their confidentiality agreement with patients if they think the patient could be a risk for launching a terror attack.

The new, stepped-up terror measures came as a response to two terror attacks carried out by migrants in Germany in July – one, an ax attack on a crowded train in Wuerzburg, and the other a suicide bombing in Ansbach.

FILE - German emergency services workers work in the area where a man with an ax attacked passengers on a train near the city of Wuerzburg, Germany, early July 19, 2016.
FILE - German emergency services workers work in the area where a man with an ax attacked passengers on a train near the city of Wuerzburg, Germany, early July 19, 2016.

De Maiziere will announce the new measures Thursday and wants to get the plans adopted during the current legislative period, German media reported.

Further measures

De Maiziere is also expected to sign off next week on a declaration with regional interior ministers from Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and sister party Christian Social Union that calls for further security and anti-terror measures, according to RND media group which publishes more than 30 regional dailies.

These additional measures include imposing a burqa ban, scrapping the possibility of dual nationalities and boosting the presence of police in trains, as well as at train stations and airports.

In related news, German prosecutors said they carried out raids targeting three suspected Islamic State supporters Wednesday, but made no arrests.

The three, according to the federal prosecutor’s office, are preachers suspected of trying to recruit young men to fight for IS in the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

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