FT.com / Home UK / UK - Schäuble warns of raised terror threat in Germany

FT.com / Home UK / UK - Schäuble warns of raised terror threat in Germany

Schäuble warns of raised terror threat in Germany
By Hugh Williamsonin Berlin

Published: June 23 2007 03:00 | Last updated: June 23 2007 03:00

German authorities warned yesterday of an increased threat of Islamist terrorist attacks in the country, including by suicide bombers, based on new evidence similar to that obtained before the September 11 attacks on the US.

Wolfgang Schäuble, interior minister, said the threat "was serious", as officials called for increased vigilance by the public and by German troops and police in Afghanistan. A spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed, however, that there was no "concrete danger" and no need for panic.

The warning was based on evidence including a new terror video by the Taliban in Afghanistan, in which a group of masked alleged suicide bombers was instructed to go to Germany.

The video, made on June 9, according to German officials, also warns of suicide bombers travelling to the US, Canada and England. The video was broadcast recently by ABC, the UStelevision network.

This month, three Germans with suspected links to terrorist networks were arrested in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to German officials.

Up to a dozen alleged German extremists are believed to be in training camps on the Afghan border, the interior ministry says.

The warning was issued on Thursday evening in Berlin at a rare on-the-record intelligence briefing for journalists, and repeated yesterday by government officials and police.

August Hanning, deputy interior minister and former head of the BND intelligence agency, said the current situation was similar to summer 2001, "when obscure threats surfaced which as we know became reality".

Germany has not been the target of a big Islamic terrorist incident but three of the suicide pilots involved in the September 11 attacks had been living in Hamburg.

Mr Hanning warned that the evidence showed that "al-Qaeda is again operational in Afghanistan" adding that German troops, police and embassy staff were the prime targets.

The video linked the threat of suicide attacks to the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan. Mr Hanning said the threat could have been aimed at derailing a decision by the German parliament to extend the deployment of German troops in Afghanistan in the autumn. Three German soldiers in Afghanistan were last month killed by a suicide bomber.

Germany tightened its anti-terror laws after September 11, and several alleged plots to mount terrorist attacks have been prevented.

Last year planned attacks on several trains were thwarted, while in 2000 police in Frankfurt arrested several men allegedly planning an attack on the Strasbourg Christmas market.

Additional reporting by Friederike von Tiesenhausen Cave in Berlin

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007