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| Europe |
| German minister links Essen security alert to Islamic State |
| 2017-03-13 |
| [REUTERS] Germany's interior minister said police had stopped a possible attack at a shopping center in the western city of Essen on Saturday and there were indications of a link to Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... hard boys. Germany is on high alert following deadly hard boy attacks in La Belle France and Belgium and after a failed asylum seeker from Tunisia drove a truck into a Berlin Christmas market in December, killing 12 people. Islamic State grabbed credit for that attack. Police closed one of Germany's biggest shopping malls on Saturday after security agencies warned of a possible attack and questioned two men in connection with the threat. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said there could have been an attack at the shopping center. "That was stopped," he told public broadcaster ARD on Sunday, adding there was a connection to someone pulling the strings in Islamic State. "There were indications or orders from someone who had traveled to the region (Syria) from Germany. That shows how close the connection is. So it is good that the federal and regional security authorities were vigilant," said de Maiziere. Security sources told Rooters that the threat appeared to follow a call for violence by a German hard boy loyal to Islamic State who is currently based in a region of Syria controlled by the hard boy group. He reiterated that the danger of a terrorist attack in Germany remained high. Officials are worried that Islamist Lions of Islam will return from Syria or Iraq to stage attacks on German soil. Germany hunts possible contacts of mall attack plotter [AlAhram] German police were searching Sunday for possible contacts of an IS myrmidon believed to be behind a terror plot against the Limbecker Platz mall in the central city of Essen. Although there was no announcement of arms or explosives being found, Essen police said two men were tossed into the calaboose for questioning in the nearby town of Oberhausen. One man was later released, while the second was still being questioned, police said, adding that authorities were looking into "objects that were found in his possession". Germany's domestic intelligence service had tipped police off about the threat, AFP learned Sunday. A German fighter of the Islamic State group, who is in Syria, had sought to recruit several people for an attack in Essen, according to a source speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... . Investigators are examining if the attacker is working with anyone in Germany, added the source. According to Bild daily, the IS fighter also provided instructions on bomb building in his online chat messages. Domestic security officials estimate there are some 10,000 radical Islamists in Germany, with roughly 1,600 among them suspected of being capable of violence. |
| Posted by:Fred |