Minister: Middle East Violence Increases Risk in Germany
July 25, 2006
Radical Islamic groups could use events in the Middle East, where Israeli troops are conducting military campaigns in Gaza and southern Lebanon, as a reason to attack other countries, Schäuble said.
"The longer the conflict continues, the greater becomes the danger of terror actions in other countries," Schäuble told the mass market Bild newspaper on Monday. "That applies to Germany too."
German security services are "intensively" observing some 900 Hezbollah supporters in the country, as well as some 300 supporters of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, he added.
A German counter-terrorism official told Reuters the threat was not limited to Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant Shiite group, but may also include other radical groups looking to take advantage of the international political tension.
"It may be a motivating factor for both Hezbollah supporters in Europe and the general jihadi 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.
No concrete threat
In the past, militant groups and individuals have said what they see as the oppression of Muslims in the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Afghanistan justifies attacks against the West.
German officials told Reuters 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.
Though Germany has not suffered terrorist attacks in recent years, authorities said they have thwarted a number of plots and arrested suspects, including people they accuse of recruiting suicide bombers to carry out attacks in Iraq.
"It cannot be ruled out that Islamist groups develop more radical tendencies," Schäuble said. "In the past there were attempts to recruit suicide bombers in Germany. We are going to intervene forcefully against such developments."