Security at German airports, railway stations and major tourist attractions was heightened on Wednesday after the government in Berlin said it had received concrete warnings that a terror cell was planning to launch attacks across the country toward the end of this month.
In city centers, traffic ground to a halt as police imposed emergency controls, while the number of armed security personnel, particularly at airports, was significantly increased as travelers were warned to be vigilant.
“The security situation in Germany has become more serious,” German Federal Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maiziere said in a statement. “We have concrete indications of a series of attacks planned for the end of November.”
Senior security forces said Germany’s federal criminal police were investigating information that a terror cell consisting of four Islamists from India and others from Pakistan was either planning to travel to Germany or was already operating there. The names of the suspects are known to officials.
De Maiziere added, in an appeal for calm, that Germany would show its strengths: “We won’t be fazed by this.”
The warnings follow a recent security scare over parcel bombs sent from Yemen to the US, one of which went through a German airport before it was intercepted in the UK. The explosives were hidden in printer cartridges.
De Maiziere made it clear that the new warning was separate from previous ones, but had come as a direct result of the Yemen incident, “in the form of a warning from an international partner,” he said, without naming names.
The Yemen parcel bomb plot, he added, had highlighted “the adaptability and persistence of terrorists in pursuing their aims” and had shown the “reliability of some leads.”
German police, working together “with people from the Islamic area, confirm independently the persistent efforts of Islamic groups to carry out attacks in Germany,” he said.
Security at potential target sites such as airports and stations would be increased until further notice, he said, adding that while there were reasons for concern there were “no reasons for hysteria.”
The head of Germany’s police union warned yesterday there were “security deficits” in the country and the nation was underprepared for a terrorist attack.
“We have missed a few steps along the way and there are security deficits that we have drawn attention to,” Konrad Freiberg told the Hamburger Abendblatt daily.
Describing the situation as “serious,” Freiberg said: “We need to do everything possible to protect the public from danger.”
Meanwhile, Rhineland-Palatinate Interior Minister Karl Peter Bruch said there were “concrete indications” of attacks being planned in major cities Berlin, Hamburg and Munich.
Germany has long been considered a target for militants linked to al-Qaeda because of the more than 4,500 military personnel it has based in Afghanistan and because of its role as the financial powerhouse of Europe.
Der Spiegel called the warning a “psycho war against Germany” and said the country had to prepare for the fact that, although it had so far escaped an attack, it could be about to join the list of victims of al-Qaeda strikes.
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