____________________
...German defense minister, Franz Josef Jung,
said on state television, ³There was an imminent security
threat.² And some officials said the attacks could have come
within days, noting that the German Parliament will soon
take up a politically fraught debate about extending the
deployment of German troops in Afghanistan.
....The surveillance was so close that in July, officials said,
the police managed to swap some of the tanks of hydrogen
peroxide the suspects had gathered with tanks of a far
lesser concentration.
____________________
Friends,
You might question my subject line for this article. Here are my reasons. (1)
Not one so-called terrorist event in the West since the Oklahoma City bombing
has stood up to scrutiny. Every single one, whether it be Lockerbie, WTC,
Madrid, London, or whatever has turned out to be phony once evidence began to
come to light. (2) Here once again we see long-term involvement by 'security'
forces leading up to the event, always called 'surveillance', but what I would
call 'arranging'. (3) And as ALWAYS, the event is conveniently timed to
facilitate some new-world-order agenda, either a gestapo 'anti-terrorist' bill,
or in this case imperialist deployment of troops.
As far as I'm concerned, any other subject line rhymes with 'bahhh bahhh'.
cheers,
rkm
btw> Once again I recommend Le Carre's "Absolute Friends", describing exactly
this kind of event, and in Germany.
____________________
Original source URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/world/europe/06germany.html
September 6, 2007
German Police Arrest 3 in Terrorist Plot
By MARK LANDLER
This article was reported by Mark Landler, Nicholas Kulish and Souad Mekhennet,
and written by Mr. Landler.
FRANKFURT, Sept. 5 ‹ German authorities said Wednesday that they had stopped a
major terrorist attack against American and German targets in this country,
arresting three Islamic militants and seizing a large amount of potentially
explosive chemicals and military-grade detonators.
Those arrested ‹ two German citizens who had converted to Islam and a Turkish
resident of Germany ‹ were in the advanced stages of plotting bomb attacks that
could have been deadlier than those that killed dozens in London and Madrid, the
police and security officials said. At least five lesser figures are still being
pursued, they said.
³They were planning massive attacks,² the German federal prosecutor, Monika
Harms, said at a news conference, outlining an intensive six-month
investigation. She said the suspects had amassed hydrogen peroxide, the main
chemical in the explosives used in the London suicide bombings of July 2005.
For months, Germany has been warning of a likely terrorist attack, and the
government has been contemplating tightening surveillance and enforcement
tactics that are now looser than elsewhere in Europe, in part because of
Germany¹s troubled 20th-century history.
Although officials spoke with confidence of the attack¹s imminence and
seriousness, they did not make fully clear the basis of their assertions. Europe
has been the site of a number of devastating terrorist plots, but some have
turned out later to be less than met the eye when announced.
If the announced details hold up under scrutiny, it means that Germany, like
Britain, has become a target for sophisticated homegrown terrorism, and the case
will fan the debate over the balance between civil liberties and public
security. Previous German plots have been far smaller, masterminded by
foreigners, or focused outside of Germany, like the 9/11 attacks, which were
hatched in Hamburg.
An American intelligence official said that the United States helped German
authorities track the location of two of the German suspects by eavesdropping on
their cellphone conversations as they moved out of training camps in Pakistan.
Ms. Harms also said that the two German converts had trained in terrorist camps
in Pakistan and that the three suspects had about 1,500 pounds of hydrogen
peroxide, which they were preparing to move by van when arrested in an
out-of-the-way village in western Germany on Tuesday afternoon. Security
authorities in Europe have warned for some years that radical converts could
pose a keen risk since they blend in easily to mainstream society.
The Turkish links in this case also trouble counterterrorism experts, who note
that Germany has generally not had to contend with a radical element in its
large Turkish Muslim minority.
³This is the first time I¹ve seen a Turkish-German network,² said Guido
Steinberg, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security
Affairs in Berlin. ³And the fact that it is connected to a Turkish network in
Pakistan is an even bigger problem.²
While the suspects were homegrown, the targets the authorities said they
intended to attack were symbols of the enduring American presence in Germany.
Information that surfaced during the investigation, which included monitoring
phone calls and tracking suspects¹ movements, led the authorities to conclude
that among the targets under consideration were the Ramstein Air Base, a crucial
transportation hub for the American military, and Frankfurt International
Airport.
The 12 vats of hydrogen peroxide collected by the suspects, when mixed with
other chemicals, could produce a bomb with a force equal to 1,200 pounds of TNT,
officials said.
³This would have enabled them to make bombs with more explosive power than the
ones used in the London and Madrid bombings,² said Jörg Ziercke, head of the
German Federal Crime Office.
Mr. Ziercke said the men belonged to a terrorist group that the police suspected
of having close ties to Al Qaeda, though he did not offer evidence of those
links. Counterterrorism experts here expressed wariness, noting that in almost
every major attack or suspected plot since 9/11, the role of Al Qaeda has been
raised but rarely substantiated.
Nevertheless, the German defense minister, Franz Josef Jung, said on state
television, ³There was an imminent security threat.² And some officials said the
attacks could have come within days, noting that the German Parliament will soon
take up a politically fraught debate about extending the deployment of German
troops in Afghanistan. Next week is also the sixth anniversary of the 9/11
attacks.
German officials were visibly relieved by the arrests ‹ the fruits of an
elaborate investigation involving more than 300 people. On Wednesday, police
officers raided 41 houses and apartments across Germany, seizing computers and
other evidence.
But some politicians warned that the danger remained high. ³The arrests
yesterday are just evidence of how serious the situation here in Germany is,²
said Wolfgang Bosbach, a prominent legislator in Chancellor Angela Merkel¹s
party.
The surveillance was so close that in July, officials said, the police managed
to swap some of the tanks of hydrogen peroxide the suspects had gathered with
tanks of a far lesser concentration.
One of the suspects, whom police sources identified as Fritz Gelowicz, a
28-year-old German born in Munich, was detained in 2005 in a raid in a Muslim
neighborhood in Bavaria. He was put under surveillance again in December 2006,
after he was seen scouting an American military barracks in Hanau, according to
court documents.
The police are investigating a German-Turkish man, an associate of Mr.
Gelowicz¹s and also a suspect in the plot, two security officials said. They
said he was believed to be in Turkey.
Tuesday¹s arrests were made at a vacation home in Oberschledorn, a village of
800 tucked into the hills, 75 miles north of Frankfurt. The suspects had rented
the house to store chemicals to make explosives, officials said. They were
preparing to leave when the police swooped in.
One of the three men fled and, in a scuffle with a police officer, wrested a
pistol from his holster and shot him in the hand before he was subdued,
officials said.
A few had seen three young men walking through the village in recent days, but
they did not arouse suspicion. Curinna Imuhl, 12, who lives near the rented
house, said, ³I thought no one was there; the shades were always down.²
On Tuesday, the Danish police arrested eight people in a suspected terrorist
plot. The German interior minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, said there was no
evidence of a direct link between the plots. Six of those suspects have already
been released.
Ms. Harms, the federal prosecutor, said the three suspects arrested Tuesday
belonged to a German cell of the Islamic Jihad Union, a radical Sunni group
based in Central Asia that split from the extremist Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan.
While this group has not been linked to terrorist attacks in Europe, it has
claimed responsibility for suicide bombings in July 2004 near the United States
and Israeli Embassies in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. The group has called for
the overthrow of the secular government in Uzbekistan.
German officials have warned that the country was under threat of a terrorist
attack because of Germany¹s involvement in Afghanistan. They said they were
particularly worried by reports of Germans taking part in terrorist training
camps in Pakistan and returning to Germany to carry out attacks.
In Berlin, Chancellor Merkel said, ³The lesson from this is the danger is not
just abstract, it¹s real.² The consequences of an attack, she added, would have
been ³indescribable.²
Mr. Ziercke said the United States aided German authorities. Another security
official said the Americans tipped off the Germans to the existence of the
Islamic Jihad Union.
President Bush, who is in Australia, was briefed on the arrests, said Gordon D.
Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council.
American officials, who have spoken publicly about Al Qaeda¹s growing abilities
to attack Western targets, say the group in Germany is likely to have ties to Al
Qaeda¹s operational figures in Pakistan. American spy agencies believe that
Qaeda¹s leaders have established a haven in Pakistan, where they have set up
small compounds to train operatives for attacks on Western targets.
American military officials said the Germans contacted them on Tuesday evening
to warn them about the plot. ³This was a German-led investigation,² said Lt.
Cmdr. Corey Barker, a spokesman for the United States European Command in
Stuttgart. ³We do appreciate their commitment to safeguarding us against a
terrorist attack.²
Ramstein is the largest American air base in Germany and a hub for troops
deploying to Eastern Europe, Iraq and Afghanistan. Commander Barker said the
base had not lifted its force protection level, which is now at the second
highest designation.
Frankfurt¹s airport, the second busiest on the Continent, after Charles de
Gaulle in Paris, was operating normally, an airport spokesman said.
Germany narrowly missed a smaller terrorist attack in July 2006, when two
suitcase bombs left on commuter trains in Cologne failed to explode. Officials
said the two suspects in that attack, from Lebanon, had a fraction of the
bomb-making chemicals amassed for this latest plot.
In June, Mr. Schäuble and his deputy, August Hanning, warned that the terrorist
threat was comparable to that in the months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks
in the United States. That plot was hatched in Hamburg by Islamic militants
posing as students.
Mr. Schäuble coupled his warning with a call for stricter anti-terrorism
measures. He said he would like the police to be able to conduct surreptitious
searches of computers belonging to people suspected of being terrorists.
In the past, some critics here have accused Mr. Schäuble of ratcheting up fears
of terrorism in order to build support for his measures. But no such criticisms
were voiced on Wednesday.
Mark Landler and Souad Mekhennet reported from Frankfurt, and Nicholas Kulish
from Berlin. Reporting was contributed by Rhea Wessel from Oberschledorn,
Germany, Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt from Washington, and Sheryl Gay Stolberg
from Sydney, Australia.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
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