Al Qaeda planning attacks on Germany?

[Marcus Marulus]

Al Qaeda planning attacks on Germany -paper


REUTERS

Reuters North American News Service

Feb 08, 2008

BERLIN, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Radical Islamist group al Qaeda plans to carry out attacks in Germany, a senior German intelligence official was quoted as saying on Friday.

Bernhard Falk, vice president of Germany's Federal Crime Office (BKA), told German daily Die Welt that al Qaeda leaders based on the Pakistani-Afghan border were eyeing German targets.

"The basic decision has been made there to carry out attacks in Germany," he told the paper.

The German Interior Ministry said later on Friday that though the risks for Germany had risen, intelligence officials had not uncovered plans for a specific attack.

Germany agreed on Wednesday to send combat troops to northern Afghanistan. Last year, it foiled a plan by Islamist militants to carry out bomb attacks against U.S. installations in Germany, seizing three men in the Sauerland region.

"We have indications that several additional plans are very probably in the works, aside from the plans made by the Sauerland plotters," Falk said, adding that German Muslims were being recruited for training as radicals in Pakistani camps.

An interior ministry spokesman told a regular news conference there were no indications for a planned attack as there had been in the case of the Sauerland plotters.

But concern about a possible attack had increased, he added, noting that there was mounting evidence on the Internet that Germany was being used to recruit and train radicals online.

"There are forums with instructions spread over 16 lessons about how to build particular kinds of bombs," he said. "This is a new development. The instructions are accurate."

Late on Thursday, deputy interior minister August Hanning, a former German spy chief, said Germany's additional deployment in Afghanistan had raised the risk of attacks.

"We're in the process of preventing further attacks," he told reporters in Berlin.

Germany had managed to thwart a number of planned attacks, but this might not be possible indefinitely, he said. (Reporting by Dave Graham and Markus Wacket; Editing by Stephen Weeks)


Source: Reuters North American News Service

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