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| The Great German Bomb Plot |
| 2007-10-05 |
| 1,200 Pounds of TNT: German police foil the most dangerous Jihadist bomb plot in Europe to date. If successful, the Oberschledorn bombings would easily have surpassed those of Madrid and London in terms of death and destruction. The plot was uncovered due to close cooperation between U.S. and German security forces. However, the discussion on how to deal with radical Muslims in Germany continues. The plotters lived in an idyllic setting. Evergreen pine forests, winding country roads, large fields and gently undulating hills surround the sleepy village of Oberschledorn and its 900 inhabitants. This is also the scene where, according to the federal prosecutor, Monika Harms, one of the “most serious conspiracies in Germany to date” was foiled. Top police official went even further. “The explosive force of this material would have been equivalent to about 1,200 lbs of TNT,” said Jörg Ziercke, president of the Federal Criminal Police Office. That would be a force several times greater than the London and Madrid bombs. In other words, the deadly cocktail for what would well have been the largest Islamic extremist bomb attack in Europe was to be mixed in Oberschledorn. It started when three young men rented a vacation home in the village: Two German Islam converts, 28-year-old Fritz Gelowicz from Ulm in southern Germany and 22-year-old Daniel Schneider from Saarland; and a 29-year-old Turk from Hesse called Adem Yilmaz. All three were arrested on Sept. 4. They had begun making bombs. When the German elite anti-terrorist police squad, the GSG-9, raided the holiday home in Oberschledorn, investigators found military detonators from Syria, which a courier supposedly smuggled into Germany. They also found 16 gallons of hydrogen peroxide in twelve blue plastic containers, a substance used also in explosives. The ingredients were apparently intended for the manufacture of several car bombs. It remains unclear, however, what it was they were really targeting. Investigators suspect they were planning to detonate the explosives in front of U.S. Army barracks in Germany and possibly, also at the U.S. Air Force base at Ramstein. In order to prevent the suspects from escaping with their explosives, police officers had secretly exchanged the highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide with a diluted liquid before the raid. This was possible because U.S. security officials had been keeping the men under surveillance since last year. In fact, it was the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) that first alerted Germans to the danger. In October 2006, the NSA intercepted suspicious emails between Germany and Pakistan. The suspects were apparently receiving instructions from the Uzbek terrorist organization, the Islamic Jihad Union. This group is thought to have a close relationship with al Qaeda and to operate in Pakistan. It is suspected that both Gelowicz and his friend, Schneider, who did his military service in a bomb disposal unit in the German army, stayed in terrorist training camps in Pakistan. Following the arrests in Oberschledorn, there was a sigh of relief in Germany – even if it didnÂ’t last long. The Oberschledorn incident immediately became caught up in the battle over tightened security laws in the governing Grand Coalition. And another question arose: How the government should handle converts to Islam. The fact that the suspects are Germans who converted to Islam was almost as shocking as the attacks they planned. Are converts particularly drawn by the allure of terrorism, many wondered. Some say that these two particularly favored radical views because they wanted to prove themselves to the Islamic community. Others point out that most who convert are German women married to Muslim men who do so out of love. It is generally agreed that the number of converts to Islam in Germany is on the rise. However, there are no reliable statistics since Muslim congregations do not keep records on their members. The climax of the debate came in the form of a suggestion that calls for converts to be registered, something highly unlikely. Wolfgang Bosbach, vice chairman of the CDU parliamentary faction, was quoted as putting the initiative forward. Later, he denied it, distancing himself from the proposal which came from Bavarian Minister of the Interior, Günther Beckstein (CSU). The idea has since been dropped. Instead, the coalition parties are currently discussing a bill by Social Democrat Minister of Justice Brigitte Zypries that would render visits to terrorist training camps punishable in the future. CDU politicians are particularly in favor of it, especially Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU). However, his party finds the proposal too lax, saying that the proposal only punishes those who attend these camps when they are actually preparing an attack. Zypries responds that one can only punish acts and not intentions. Bosbach, however, considers this proposal “impractical.” The federal state of Hesse, controlled by the CDU, responded by putting forward its own, more detailed proposal. There is concern in the SPD that the CDU is using the subject of security to score points with voters already two years before the next general election − and to drive the SPD out of security matters. “They think they have struck a rich vein with people's concerns over security,” one SPD member complained. “They are trying to drive us away.” Another noted: “It was a mistake to give the CDU the two important ministries that deal with security, namely defense and interior.” |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #1 It is important to remember that the Janissaries were Christian children that were taken from parents and converted to Islam. They were famous for their willingness to kill their (biological) parents and fight like machines. Al |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2007-10-05 19:14 |