Expatica - Al-Qaeda: a model for neo-Nazis?

The string of terror attacks around the world orchestrated by al-Qaeda has raised fears among German police that the nation's neo-Nazi movement might trying to learn from the tactics used by Osama bin Laden's network of loosely connected cells. Ernest Gill asks: are neo-Nazis adopting a new strategy of violence? (...) "Neo-Nazi street violence has been on the increase since the start of the year," says Kathrin Kalauch, a social worker in the district. "An Asian schoolboy was stabbed in this neighbourhood just two weeks ago." And yet the isolated incidents attract little notice because neo-Nazis in Germany appear to be changing their tactics, according to federal investigators. Aside from the random attacks, generally by inebriated youths, there is a growing awareness in the radical right-wing element that there are lessons to be learned from the radical left - and from Islamic terrorists. "Instead of a rigid top-down leadership hierarchy, they are increasingly adopting the principal of leaderless resistance," says neo-Nazi expert Thomas Grumke. It is the sort of "leaderless resistance" that is the hallmark of the al-Qaeda network of loosely connected terrorist cells. It is a variation of a tactic propagated a decade ago by American neo-Nazi Louis Beam. For German neo-Nazis, with their traditional fixation on a "Fuehrer" who tells his underlings what to do, it marks a radical departure.