Police conduct a raid in Ulm. (Photo: http://images.google.de)

On Wednesday this week, arrests were made after the police made a major raid of the Islamist scene in Germany. 43 apartments and houses were searched. Six of them were in Berlin, according to the State Criminal Investigation Department of Baden-Württemberg. No one, however, was arrested in the German capital.

In Ulm, Bonn and Wiesbaden, three suspects were arrested on suspicion of having founded a criminal organisation. Ulm is known as a refuge for members of radical faiths in Germany.

The three suspects, together with four other individuals, are believed to have radicalised more than 100 people, recruiting them for an Egyptian school so that these people could allegedly later engage in Jihad. It is important to note that while the German press calls these people "followers of Islam," many Muslim individuals decry this.

During the raid, 35 additional people were checked for connections to Islamist extremist boot camps; and many computers and written documents were searched. According to the investigation group "Transfer", many people came back to Germany after they allegedly ended their training; others likely remained in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Islamic countries.

Following investigations in August, 2008, it came to light that a big part of the training in the madrassas was financed by a foreign organisation.