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| Europe |
| Reports Say Would-be Bombers Smuggled in Detonators |
| 2007-10-09 |
| Media reports in Germany say three Islamists arrested last month for planning car bombs attacks on US targets had smuggled the detonators into the country with the help of a teenager. The three men, two of them Germans who had converted to Islam and one Turk, were arrested last month by the authorities amid fears they were to plant three car bombs, each packed with 250 kilograms of home-made explosives, at American sites. German news magazine Der Spiegel as well as Focus, another magazine, reported on Saturday, Oct. 6 that the detonators obtained by the trio were smuggled into Germany unawares by a 15-year-old boy. Police had interrogated the boy, a Tunisian national living in Germany, they said. "I'm not a terrorist" The detonators had been concealed in the soles of a pair of shoes in a plastic bag. The boy said he was approached by a stranger in an Istanbul mosque and offered money to take the shoes to Germany. Focus said it had approached the boy, expected to be a key witness at the trial, and he said he had not been party to the plot, adding, "I'm not a terrorist." Der Spiegel did not say how it had obtained the information. The police inquiry into the plot is still underway. Bombers targeted US sites Der Spiegel also said that surveillance of the three Islamists before their arrests showed that they wanted to kill US citizens, and spoke of possible targets including the huge US Air Force transport base at Ramstein in western Germany. The trio rejected attacks on US military supermarkets since women and children would also be killed, the report said. German authorities said the men arrested had trained in militant camps in Pakistan before forming a domestic cell of the Islamic Jihad Union, which has its roots in Uzbekistan, but which police believe operated out of Pakistan and Iran. The police said the attacks could have caused even worse carnage than bomb attacks in Madrid or London in recent years. Germany to restrict sale of chemicals The German government confirmed on Saturday, Oct 6 that it planned to restrict the sale of nine chemicals which can be used to make explosives. Traders would have to keep a sales log and record the names and identity documents of all buyers while online sales to private individuals would be banned. Online security measures still controversial News of the arrests of the home-grown terrorists have shaken Germany and sparked calls for tightening and broadening the scope of the country's anti-terrorism measures. Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble is seeking powers allowing investigators to send software that secretly installs itself on specific computers, relaying data to police computers as users operate online. Reports on Saturday that Bavaria's regional criminal office already installs programs on computer hard drives that allows authorities to listen to Internet-based telephone calls have triggered unease among politicians who say there is still no legal basis for the measure. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |