Merkel says security threat to Germany real
Agencies, indian express.Posted: Wed Nov 24 2010, 18:16 hrs=======================================================================Berlin:
German chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday said that the terrorist threat facing her country was "real" as security and intelligence agencies continued their raids across Europe on suspected safe houses of Islamic jihadists.
Speaking to lawmakers at the Reichstag, the German Parliament which has been closed to public over concerns of a possible terrorist strike, Merkel said there is a reason to worry, "but no cause for hysteria."
Germans have been on the edge since the Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere raised the country's terrorist threat level last week.
The German chancellor's concerns came as security agencies continued a clampdown in major European cities charging nine people in Belgium for alleged participation in terrorist activities.
Authorities said today that seven were charged in a probe centering on an alleged network suspected of planning a possible attack in Belgium and involvement in recruitment for a Chechen militant organisation.
Three others were arrested in the Netherlands and one in Germany during the raids on Tuesday. Two more were charged in a separate probe centering on a network allegedly seeking funds and recruits to join militant groups in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The security agencies suspect that al-Qaeda plotters in Pakistan could use European recruits or Chechen cadres to mount spectacular strikes in Europe.
The German interior minister has said that there were intelligence reports that militants based on Af-Pak border were planning to mount strikes by the end of November.
Most of those detained in Belgian global diamond trade centre Antwerp were of Dutch, Moroccan and Russian nationalities.
Germany last week stepped up the security for airports, railway stations and places of mass gatherings as well as the country's parliament in Berlin in the wake of the warnings, which came from several sources.
The prosecutor said the ten Islamists have been under observation since a Moroccan resident in Antwerp gave a tip-off to the police at the end of last year that they are planning to carry out an attack in Belgium.
They have been also charged with raising funds for an international terrorist organisation and trying to recruit new members for the Islamic rebels fighting against Russia in Chechnya.
Germany's Federal Criminal Office (BKA) confirmed that the person arrested in Aachen is a 31-year-old Russian from Chechnya, who is already facing charges for his membership in a terrorist organisation.
A court in Belgium had issued an EU-wide arrest warrant against him. He made no resistance when he was taken into custody at a house in Aachen, where he has been living for some time, BKA said.
(indian express)
======================================================
No comments:
Post a Comment