A Hungarian youth, linked to the terrorist organization that calls itself the Islamic State, has been apprehended by Hungary’s Counter-Terrorism Center (TEK), said the director-general of TEK on an evening program of TV channel M1.
János Hajdú explained that this case is related to the case of a young Hungarian man, V. Kende, who professed to be an Islamist and planned several terrorist attacks in Hungary. During an analysis of V. Kende’s communication, they found a conversation with the now-captured T. Dominik. At the same time, information was received from the German police that the man had distributed various materials encouraging jihadist fighting online. The IP address was identified in Hungary. The captured man had saved more than a thousand files of the most brutal methods of execution and terrorist propaganda. The man had also been on sites that require administrator access, said the TEK director-general, who confirmed in reply to one question that this was a propaganda channel for the Islamic State.
He said:
Dominik did not go as far in the process of radicalization and the planning of an attack as V. Kende, but if he had not been captured now, he clearly would have ended up there.
The director-general said:
The 23-year-old man, who professes to be a Muslim, is Hungarian, and his father was born in Hungary, but his family had Algerian roots. The young person has a very difficult family background.
—he pointed out, noting that terrorist organizations are looking for those who are hopeless and feel like nobodies.
János Hajdu was asked about the fact that the terrorist organization the Islamic State is becoming more and more active in the online space:
The terrorist threat has not ended, it has transformed. Crimes happen at a much faster pace following online radicalization. If a susceptible young person is reached, an attack can be carried out in days or weeks. Until then, however, they may be invisible to the authorities, their families and their environment. They may only appear online on the day of the crime, making it difficult to prevent attacks
—he explained.
According to the CEO of TEK, almost everything takes place on the Internet. But he stressed that the European Community is prepared to deal with terrorist threats.