Germany is terror threat "powder keg" - top prosecutor
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany is sitting on a "powder keg" as radicalised
Islamic migrants, who might be plotting an attack, become harder to
detect or apprehend, the country's chief prosecutor was quoted as saying on
Saturday.
Germany has stepped up security ahead of the World Cup soccer
tournament in June, its biggest sporting event in three decades, and received strong
international support for its plans to neutralise the risks of terrorism and
hooligan violence.
German authorities have been at pains to stress the country has no
intelligence of any specific threats to the soccer tournament, which
will feature teams from 32 countries.
But the country is equally anxious to avoid a repeat of the security
breaches which saw 11 Israeli athletes killed by a Palestinian terror
group at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Asked in an interview with German daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel how
dangerous the "Islamist terror" threat was for Germany, Federal
Prosecutor Kay Nehm said:
"Assessing the security situation is not the federal prosecutor's job.
However, I have the impression we're sitting on a powder keg. The
attacks on Madrid and London showed that dissatisfied migrants living in a country
can become radicalised without the threat they pose being recognised in
time."
Nearly 200 people died in an attack on Madrid by Islamist militants in
March 2004, while more than 50 were killed in suicide bombings on London's
transport system last summer.
Nehm, whose office is responsible for investigating suspected acts of
terror against the state, said there was an increasing tendency for
perpetrators to act alone, which made it harder for authorities to apprehend them.
Germany hosts the World Cup between June 9 and July 9.
The Defence Ministry aims to increase police coverage on the ground
with extra soldiers while NATO has agreed to deploy surveillance aircraft to
monitor the biggest sporting event the country has hosted since the
1974 World Cup in West Germany.
Germany has not suffered any major militant attacks in recent years,
although a cell including members of the group that carried out the
Sept. 11 attacks on the United States was based in Hamburg.
