Islamist religious bigots threaten Germany

NY Times:

Germany faces a heightened threat of terrorist attacks because of its military involvement in Afghanistan, government security officials here said Friday. The danger level, they warned, was comparable to the months before the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

Three German residents, believed to be radical Islamic militants, were arrested in Pakistan in recent days, according to the German Federal Criminal Police. Officials here suspect them of traveling to the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan to enter terrorist training camps.

“This tells us that German interests are in danger of being attacked, for example, by suicide bombers,” a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Christian Sachs, said in a telephone interview.

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The authorities gave few details about the German residents arrested in Pakistan, saying only that two had been under surveillance while at home and were viewed as potentially dangerous. The authorities feared that the German residents may have planned to return to Germany to carry out attacks.

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Mr. Hanning likened the atmosphere to that in the summer before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, “when obscure threats surfaced, which, as we know, became reality.” Several of the hijackers in the attacks hatched their plot while posing as students in Hamburg.

The latest warning — which was amplified in public statements by the interior minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, and the head of the Federal Criminal Police, Jörg Ziercke — is likely to fan domestic debate about Germany’s military obligations, which now range from Africa to Central Asia.

In Afghanistan, Germany has 3,000 troops, part of a NATO force that has battled a persistent Taliban insurgency. Terrorism experts said jitters about an attack could put pressure on politicians not to extend the German military deployment, which comes up for renewal in Parliament in October.

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The Germans in Afghanistan are not even permitted to engage in combat operations. If the Germans wimp out on this obligation because of intimidation by Islamist religious bigots they will just come under more pressure from these groups.