– Germany Next Target of Terrorism?

Germany on watch for Mideast-linked attacks
Reuters

More BERLIN- The Middle East crisis may increase the risk of Islamist militant attacks outside the region, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was quoted on Monday as saying.

Islamist groups could be further inflamed by events in the Middle East, where Israeli forces have bombed Lebanon heavily and crossed the border to fight Hezbollah guerrillas who seized two Israeli soldiers and launched rockets at northern Israel, Schaeuble told Bild newspaper.

"The longer the conflict continues, the greater becomes the danger of terror actions in other countries. That applies to Germany too," Schaeuble said.

German security services are "intensively" observing an estimated 900 Hezbollah supporters in the country, as well as some 300 supporters of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, he said.

A German counter-terrorism official told Reuters the perceived threat was not limited to Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant Shi'ite group, but could also come from other radicals keen to exploit the heightened tension.

"It may be a motivating factor for both Hezbollah supporters in Europe and the general jihad scene, which -- while it is usually quite distinct from Hezbollah, and they don't actually like each other very much -- might just try to get mileage out of this and exploit the general outrage of the Arab street," he said.

Individual militants and al Qaeda leaders have cited what they see as oppression of Muslims in the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Afghanistan as justification for previous attacks on the West, including last year's London bombings and the suicide hijackings in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

German officials say they have not detected any concrete threat but are concerned about how the situation may develop.

Germany has tightened its anti-terrorism laws and boosted surveillance of militant Islamists since the Sept. 11 attacks, in which three of the suicide pilots were Arab students who had been living in Hamburg.

It has not suffered terrorist attacks in recent years, but authorities say they have thwarted a number of plots and arrested suspects, including people they accuse of recruiting suicide bombers to carry out attacks in Iraq.