Children are being radicalised at home by Islamist parents in Germany, the head of the country’s domestic intelligence service warned on Monday.
“The ongoing jihadist radicalisation of children is worrisome and presents a challenge,” Hans-Georg Maaßen, the head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), said.
Children radicalised at home could present a “significant security risk”, he told a German regional newspaper group.
German intelligence warned last year that the children of volunteers who travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight for Isil could present a security risk on their return to Germany.
But Mr Maaßen said on Monday there are also serious concerns about children who have never left Germany but who are exposed to Islamic extremism in their homes.
“There are signs minors and young adults are more likely to be radicalised, and that it’s happening faster and earlier,” he said.
Several hundred children are living in Islamic extremist families in Germany, according to the BfV.
There have been calls to lower the legal minimum age limit for surveillance by the security services in response to the warning.
Under current laws, it is illegal for police or the intelligence services to put anyone under the age of 14 under surveillance in most of Germany.
Patrick Sensburg, a leading MP from Angela Merkel’s party, said the law had to be changed to adapt to emerging threats.
“This is not about criminalizing people under the age of 14, but about warding off significant threats to our country, such as Islamist terrorism, which also targets children,” Mr Sensburg said.
Bavaria dropped the minimum age limit for surveillance several years ago, and there have been calls for other states to follow suit.
Following reports of the radicalised children of Isial volunteers returning from the Middle East, officials in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, said they were considering dropping the limit.
“The inhibition threshold for violence is lower in these children,” Herbert Reul, the regional interior minister, told German radio. “The authorities therefore need the tools to take care of traumatized and violent returnees under the age of 14.”