German Terror Plot Revealed

An attempt was made to launch an attack on German commuter trains on July 31st. German authorities revealed details of two suitcase bombs today. The bags contained bottles of gasoline and propane with a detonation device. It is not know why the two bags were abandoned before they could be detonated.

Aug. 18 (Bloomberg) — Two suitcases containing bottles of gasoline, propane gas and a detonating device that were found abandoned in German regional trains last month were bombs primed to go off and kill a “high number'' of people, police said.

“We're accusing as yet unknown suspects of having tried to ignite unconventional flammable and explosive devices on July 31, 2006, in the cities of Dortmund and Koblenz with the aim of killing a high number of people,'' Federal Prosecutor Rainer Griesbaum said at a press conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, today. The perpetrators are suspected of being members of a “domestic terrorist organization,'' Griesbaum said.

A suitcase found abandoned on a regional train from Aachen to Hamm in western Germany was turned in by the train's conductor in Dortmund. It contained a propane gas bottle, three bottles filled with gasoline and a detonating device, the Federal Prosecutor's Office said Aug. 1. On the same day another piece of luggage was found on another regional train from Moenchengladbach to Koblenz about 75 miles to the South. It too contained a propane gas bottle.

“We have to take this event very seriously,'' Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in a faxed statement today. “We have to expect that the danger of a repeat attempt still exists.''

One thoroughly stupid statement in the article:

The terror threat in Germany isn't considered to be as high as in the U.K. or U.S. because the country didn't take part in the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the government has said. Still, it did train Iraqi police officers and so may also be a terror target.

The planned bombing “corresponds to our evaluation that attacks could also hit our country,'' Schaeuble said.

The terrorists are not motivated by Iraq. They were making attacks before the invasion of Iraq. If Iraq had never happened, they would still be attacking. This is global and unrelenting.

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1. Blue Crab Boulevard » Blog Archive » Suspects Arrested In German Train Plot — August 25, 2006 @ 8:42 pm