Thousands of ex-Taliban militants may have entered Germany: Report

A report claims that thousands of Afghan refugees suspected to be former Taliban militants may have entered Germany over the past two years.

German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel said in report on Saturday that authorities were verifying statements of thousands of Afghan refugees, who had come to the European country and identified themselves as former members of the Taliban militant group during the asylum application process.

Citing Germany’s Federal Migration Office (BAMF), the magazine said criminal investigations had been launched in 70 cases and that six Afghan refugees were being held in investigatory detention. It added that preliminary court hearings involving several other Afghans were due to start next week.

Meanwhile, the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office also cautioned that it was already “pushed to the limit” by the large number of counter-terrorism investigations it had to conduct, with the agency opening 200 criminal cases against suspected terrorists in the year 2016.

According to official figures from BAMF, Germany has accepted nearly one million refugees from war-torn or impoverished countries since the beginning of 2015, including tens of thousands of Afghan asylum seekers.

The Afghan refugees constitute the second largest group of asylum seekers in Germany after Syrians.

Berlin has been carrying out collective deportations based on an agreement with Kabul reached in early October 2016.

In early February, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on authorities to accelerate the deportations of rejected refugees as anti-refugee sentiments have been on the rise and there have been increasing demands pressed by opposition parties to curb the number of refugees.

Europe has been experiencing an unprecedented influx of refugees over the past couple of years. The asylum seekers flee conflict-ridden zones in North Africa and the Middle East.