International Herald Tribune
09-06-2007
The alleged plot by Islamist militants to carry out ''massive bomb attacks'' against U.S. and German installations was designed in part to increase pressure for a pullout of German troops from Afghanistan, security experts said Wednesday. Even though most of Germany's 3,200 troops are based in a relatively peaceful region in the north of Afghanistan - not in the south where NATO military forces are trying to contain an insurgency led by Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other forces - it has not been immune to attacks on its troops or threats against targets in Germany.''It is not entirely a coincidence that the foiled attacks today are part of a strategy by Al Qaeda,'' said Thomas Ruttig, an expert on security issues and Afghanistan at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin.''They want to try to influence the political debate here about the role of the German troops,'' he said.Ruttig added that the timing of the plot had been linked to the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington and the coming debate in the Bundestag, or German Parliament, about whether to extend the mandate for troops serving in Afghanistan.''Al Qaeda is following the domestic debate here over the future of the German troops in Afghanistan,'' he said. ''They know exactly what is going on here.''Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble and his deputy, August Hanning, who is a former head of the security services, warned in July of possible attacks in Europe by German Islamist suicide bombers trained in camps in Pakistan.Earlier this year, a Lebanese man was charged with planning a series of train bomb attacks in 2006.Three of the three pilots involved in the Sept. 11 terror attacks had studied and lived in the northern German city of Hamburg.Schauble and Hanning were accused by opposition parties of exaggerating the threat and sowing panic.In recent weeks, Schauble has called for tougher laws that would allow pre-emptive detention of suspected militants and permit the government to prevent people considered dangerous from using the Internet and mobile phones. Last week, the Interior Ministry was planning to send spy software programs into computers owned by people they suspected of having links with terrorist organizations.In both cases, Schauble was criticized by civil liberties advocates, but the Interior Ministry said Wednesday that it was more confident that it could tighten security controls.''It is absurd that the security services cannot have that access, particularly given how terrorist groups and individuals communicate via the Internet,'' said Eckart von Klaeden, foreign policy spokesman for the Christian Democrat Union party of Chancellor Angela Merkel.He added that Germany was not immune from attack because it had sent no troops to Iraq.Terror attacks in London and Madrid were directly related to military involvement in Iraq but the German public has generally believed that by not becoming involved in Iraq, Germany would be immune from attack.''Its presence in Afghanistan was making it more vulnerable, which terrorist groups could use as leverage,'' von Klaeden said.A German engineer has been held hostage by radical Islamists in Afghanistan for several months and three German soldiers were killed there last May by suicide bombers. Last month, three police officers were killed in Kabul when their convoy was blown up by a roadside bomb. In all, 24 German soldiers and security personnel have been killed since the Afghan mission began in 2002.''The German government and public had to stand united in keeping its troops in Afghanistan and supporting measures that would prevent terrorist attacks,'' he said. ''We have to remain in Afghanistan. The last thing Al Qaeda and the Taliban want is a democratic and prosperous Afghanistan.''Political parties in Germany have been embroiled in an often-bitter debate about the role played by German troops in Afghanistan and particularly about the high numbers of citizens killed by NATO forces and U.S. troops. The new Left Party, led by a former Social Democrat leader, Oskar Lafontaine, has called for all troops, not only those in Afghanistan but also those serving in other multinational peacekeeping missions, to be brought home immediately.Lafontaine said Tuesday that his party would vote against extending troop mandates.The opposition Greens party, which supported sending troops to Afghanistan when it was in coalition with the Social Democrats, is now having doubts. Under pressure from the party's pacifist wing, it will hold a special congress on the issue in the coming days.Even the Social Democrats, increasingly concerned that their own pacifist voters will drift to the Left Party, have decided to put Afghanistan and other peacekeeping missions on the agenda of its annual party congress later this year.
2007 Copyright International Herald Tribune. http://www.iht.com
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