A 48-year-old German man was arrested Tuesday after a days-long manhunt over a series of rocket attacks targeting the nation’s electrical infrastructure near coal-fired power plants.
Police took ‘Daniel V’ — his full name withheld under German privacy laws — into custody at a checkpoint near the Weisweiler coal power station. He offered no resistance but was carrying a backpack containing explosives.
Officers later discovered a concealed tent nearby, also rigged with explosives.
The attacks struck at least six high-voltage power sites across three German states. Authorities are now investigating whether additional sabotage attempts went undetected.
“Generating electricity from fossil fuels is a crime.”
German broadcaster NTV reported the suspect allegedly used home-made rockets to carry lightweight wire over high-voltage power lines. Once the rocket fell, the wire would ground the equipment and potentially cause catastrophic failure.
Bright flashes of blue-white light were observed at some attack sites as high-voltage electricity arced to the ground.
The locations appear chosen to trip and shut down the coal plants themselves. In one assault, more than 20 rockets were fired at the Turnow-Preilack substation near the Jänschwalde power plant in Brandenburg, causing two short circuits.
Dutch broadcaster NOS reported a brief power interruption after a large-scale outage at another coal-fired plant over the past week. Part of the Bergheim power plant west of Cologne was knocked out for several days after another rocket attack.
The manhunt began last week after several German newspapers received handwritten confession letters containing a political manifesto. The letters stated the sabotage was launched because “generating electricity from fossil fuels is a crime” and over alleged German complicity in “the genocide in Palestine.”
The letters did not disguise the author’s identity and contained details of the attacks not yet public. A raid on the suspect’s home last week discovered home-made explosives.
German Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt called the attacks “climate terrorism” — a rare admission of left-wing terrorism in Europe, where officials typically focus on Islamist and right-wing threats.
He suggested the attacks could also be a Russian false-flag operation to sow discord.
The rocket attacks follow years of escalating infrastructure sabotage by hard-left groups in Europe. Previous attacks showed sophisticated understanding of where to strike for maximum disruption, leading to speculation that attackers may be former power or railway employees.
But until now, the attacks relied on simple arson or cable-cutting rather than technical complexity.
50,000 homes were left without power in Berlin in September 2025 after a hard-left group burned out a key power line, overwhelming backup systems. Trams were stranded on roads, blocking major junctions, and even emergency telephone numbers ceased functioning.
The attack was the longest power outage in the city since World War II.
A left-wing group calling itself “Some Anarchists” said ending the use of electricity altogether was their ultimate aim. They claimed life without electricity would be full of “freedom without domination and exploitation.”
The group stated: “Electricity is the primary source of energy that powers every machine and the ‘progress’ necessary to reproduce this current system.”
The month before that, German railways experienced days of massive disruption as ultra-anarchists set fire to cables, rendering a major intercity and international rail line unusable.
As the first cable damage was repaired, a second fire was discovered nearby, again knocking the line out.
A group calling themselves ‘Kommando’ claimed responsibility and wrote in their manifesto: “The society we live in is in the process of devouring the entire planet… The only solution is the complete dismantling of the technological-industrial system. We consider attacks on transportation, communications, and energy infrastructure, along with other forms of resistance, to be essential in this fight.”
In 2022, backhaul communications cables for Germany’s railway radio system — safety-critical equipment without which modern high-speed trains cannot safely operate — were “willfully and intentionally severed.”
The attackers had “very precise knowledge of the railway’s radio system” and cut two cables simultaneously 340 miles apart.
A German Army General said at the time the purpose of such attacks are “pinpricks in the population that are intended to stir up uncertainty and shake confidence in our state” and that “every substation, every power plant, every pipeline can be attacked.”
Railway traffic was paralyzed across France on the opening day of the Paris 2024 Olympics when suspected ultra-left activists launched sabotage attacks described as “deliberate, very precise, extremely well-targeted.”
The following day, France was hit again when internet backbone cable networks were sabotaged in six locations nationwide simultaneously.
In 2019, cables supplying power to high-speed trains were sabotaged in Italy. The attack appeared to coincide with a court ruling on a left-wing group accused of bombing a book shop.
In early 2022, the far-left was suspected over sabotage of a power station and nine power lines over two nights in France, leaving thousands of homes and a semiconductor factory without power.
Days later, several French cities were left totally without internet after data cables in several locations were cut in the same night. The sabotage was done so effectively that attackers would have to have “known the network,” officials said.
Authorities in Germany are continuing to investigate whether Daniel V acted alone or as part of a larger network.
Radical Leftists Claim Responsibility for Arson Attack That Left Tens of Thousands Without Power in Berlinhttps://t.co/Qaepf3iPgu
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 5, 2026
Two Arson Attacks on Major German Railway in Two Days, Anti-Economy Ultra-Anarchists Take Credithttps://t.co/081Q40X8Pm
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 2, 2025
