The offensive launched by Turkey in a Kurdish region of northern Syria has also sown the seeds of discord in Germany. One reason may be the reports that German tanks have been deployed in the attacks. But it became a particularly emotional domestic matter following reports that the imams of mosques run by the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB) have apparently called on worshippers to pray for a successful military offensive. Spiegel Online reported that an imam from the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg wrote that his community would pray that “our heroic army and heroic soldiers be victorious.”
“So ‘prayers for freedom’ at DITIB Cologne go hand in hand with illustrations of tanks and the recitation of the Surah Al-Fath?” the Green politician Volker Beck wrote on Twitter. “Can they deceive the public with this strategy?”