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German Police Want Army to Help Protect Public
11/23/2010
SPIEGEL ONLINE
LINK
Germany is on high alert following last week's terror warning. Now a police trade union has called for the army to be deployed to help cope with the terrorist threat. The government is also reported to be planning a big revamp of intelligence agencies and security forces.
A German police trade union called on Tuesday for the army to help protect the population from terrorist attacks. Klaus Jansen, the chairman of the Federation of German Criminal Police Officers (BDK), said the police didn't have enough personnel to maintain their current heightened levels of deployment following last week's
terror warning by Thomas de Maizière, the German interior minister.
"We must assume that the police state of emergency caused by the acute terrorist threat will last until well into next year," BDK chairman Klaus Jansen told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung newspaper. He recommended using the army's military police because of their police training.
The German constitution, mindful of the abuses of state power during the Nazi era, attaches strict conditions to the deployment of troops inside Germany. It stipulates that the police is in charge of providing domestic security and that the army may only be used on German soil to respond to a "grave accident or a natural disaster."
Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union party has repeatedly argued that the constitution should be amended to allow the pre-emptive use of the armed forces in Germany to avert terrorist attacks, but it has failed to win the necessary backing of other parties.
Jansen suggested that the tens of thousands of soldiers that will be made redundant as a result of
planned army cutbacks should be retrained as police officers.
Government Rift Over Data Storage
Germany has beefed up police patrols of airports, major train stations and public places since de Maizière warned last week that Islamic terrorists were believed to be planning a terrorist attack in Germany at the end of November.
On Monday, the dome of the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin, a popular tourist attraction, was closed until further notice. A report in the latest edition of SPIEGEL, published on Sunday, said terrorists may be
planning an attack on the Reichstag. There are also increased checks and patrols at the Christmas markets, many of which have opened this week, following speculation that they could become targets for terrorist attacks.
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Terrorists Believed to Be Planning Attack in Berlin
11/20/2010
SPIEGEL ONLINE
LINK
It would be an attack on the very heart of democracy. SPIEGEL has learned that terrorists may have been planning an attack on the Reichstag, the home of the German parliament and one of the most popular tourist destinations in Berlin. Two suspected culprits are already believed to be in Berlin.
According to information obtained by German security authorities, al-Qaida and associated groups are believed to be planning an attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin, the headquarters of Germany's parliament and also an attraction visited by thousands of tourists every day. As part of the attack, terrorists would seek to take hostages and perpetrate a bloodbath using firearms.
The information about the alleged plans came from a jihadist who is currently abroad and has reportedly contacted the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) several times in recent days. The jihadist apparently wants to abandon the group. The information provided by the jihadist informant was apparently the reason behind German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière's decision to hold a press conference on Wednesday warning of an imminent attack in the country.
According to the caller, the terror cell is comprised of six people -- two of whom are believed already to have traveled to Berlin six to eight weeks ago, and are now staying in the city. Four other perpetrators -- a German, a Turk, a North African and a further man the jihadist could not identify -- are currently waiting to travel to Germany. The attacks are purportedly being planned for February or March.
Apparent Plans for Second Attack
The second warning backing de Maizière's concerns came from the United States. The US federal police, the FBI, sent a cable to the BKA two weeks ago noting another possible further attack. A Shiite-Indian group known as the "Saif," or sword, is believed to have engaged in a pact with al-Qaida and to have sent two men to Germany to carry out an attack there.
Both were believed to be traveling to the United Arab Emirates on Nov. 22, where they would be supplied with new travel papers so that they could continue on to Germany. The suspects allegedly already posess visas for Europe's Schengen zone of visa-free travel. The FBI has named Mushtaq Altaf bin-Khadri as the man behind the attack plans.
The man believed to be trying to smuggle the would-be terrorists into Europe is 54-year-old weapons dealer Dawood Ibrahim, who the United Nations believes is a major backer of terrorism. He is considered to be one of the men behind the terror attacks perpetrated in Mumbai in November 2008. The FBI and Germany's BKA both consider the message to be extremely important. However, the US foreign intelligence service, the CIA, and both the German foreign intelligence service, the BND, and its domestic counterpart, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, are skeptical.
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Events that led up to the above articles:
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German Government Issues 'Concrete' Terror Warning
11/17/2010
SPIEGEL ONLINE
LINK
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere on Wednesday issued the most explicit warning yet that Germany may be the target of a terror attack in the near future. New evidence, he says, means that there is "cause for concern."
"The situation has changed." That was the message delivered by German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière in Berlin on Wednesday in reference to the risk that Germany might be the target of a terror attack in the near future. "There is cause for concern," he intoned, "but not for hysteria."
For weeks, Germany's government has been warning of an increased risk of an attack in the country. But Berlin has continually insisted that the risk was an abstract one and that there was little in the way of concrete information. That, said de Maizière, has now changed.
He said that security officials both in Germany and abroad now have information that an attack might be in the works for the end of November. For the first time, he said, there are "concrete investigation leads."
"We will show strength and will not allow ourselves to be intimidated," de Maizière told reporters at a hastily called press conference. "We will not allow international terrorism to limit our lifestyles nor our culture of freedom."
Germany's interior minister said he has ordered security officials across Germany to increase patrols, particularly in airports, train stations and other possible targets. On Wednesday morning, increased patrols were already apparent at Berlin's main train station and on the square in front of the Brandenburg Gate.
"We have to expect an attack at any time," said a senior security official in Berlin. According to the official, Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) is investigating indications that a terror cell, made up of four Islamists from India and others from Pakistan is preparing to travel to Germany or has already arrived. Officials are in possession of the names of the suspects.
More Concerned
For most of his first year in office, de Maizière has proven to be much less vocal about the dangers of terrorism than his predecessor Wolfgang Schäuble, who is now Germany's finance minister. Recently, however, his message has changed. Just the week before last, he urged the German population to be vigilant. In an interview with the mass-circulation tabloid Bild am Sonntag, he said that there were no concrete indications that an attack was imminent but that he had become more concerned.
Warnings of an impending terrorist attack in Europe have been circulating for months, with much of the concern having come from the interrogations of two German radicals who were recently taken into custody. In July, an Islamist from Hamburg named Ahmad Siddiqui was arrested by the US military in Kabul. He reported having been told of impending attacks in Europe by an al-Qaida member named Younis al-Mauretani.
Rami M., another German radical from Hamburg, was arrested in Pakistan and he confirmed the information provided by Ahmad S. Rami M. has since been extradited to Germany while Ahmad S. remains in US custody at the Bagram air force base in Afghanistan. In addition to Germany, France and Great Britain have also been mentioned as possible targets.
But there are additional sources as well. According to US officials, there are indications that a dozen potential attackers have already left the Afghan-Pakistan border region for Europe. For weeks, officials have been saying that a potential attack could follow the pattern of the raid on Mumbai two years ago. In that attack, 10 terrorists attacked across the city, focusing on hotels, restaurants and the train station. In total, some 166 people were killed and hundreds injured.
German security officials say that Wednesday's warning comes as a result of their own investigations having confirmed aspects of a threat that has, until now, been largely abstract. "We have lots of evidence and for the first time the abstract warnings are becoming a concrete image," said a senior government official on Wednesday.
Daily Updates
De Maizière spoke on Wednesday of the Islamist scene in Germany and said that officials have long been observing an increasing number of violence-prone radicals. Some of them, he said, have already attended al-Qaida or Taliban training camps, while others have been radicalized by imams in Germany. His repeated references to "concrete indications" likely indicates that investigators have found proof that attacks are being planned.
Officials also said on Wednesday that they have observed an increase in the amount of travel among Islamists in Germany in recent years. Investigators know of 200 cases of radicals traveling to terror camps. At least 100 of them have returned to Germany. As a result of the warnings from abroad, security personnel have intensified their perusal of flight lists and of those arriving from suspect countries. They are concerned that some potential attackers may be in possession of German passports.
In addition, Germany's federal police is being outfitted for a worst-case scenario. Should there indeed be a Mumbai-like attack, police would be prepared to storm a building occupied by terrorists holding hostages, police officials say. Officers patrolling airports and train stations have also been well armed.
France, too, has increased surveillance of the Islamist scene there and security officials have made several arrests in recent weeks. Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden recently issued an explicit threat of attacks against France. Germany was threatened last autumn in the run up to the September 2009 general elections, and some terror experts believe that the threat is still valid.
De Maizière's warning to the German public is one of the most explicit warnings ever given in Germany. For weeks, the interior minister has been receiving several updates each day. Government security experts say that the situation is reminiscent of that immediately prior to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the US.
Reported by Matthias Gebauer and Yassin Musharbash
