Posted on 08/21/2006 8:36:07 AM PDT by bobsunshine
German police on Saturday arrested a 22-year-old Lebanese student suspected of placing a suitcase holding a bomb made of gasoline and propane gas on a train last month.
Police arrested the man at a train station in Kiel, a northern German port city where he lives, early Saturday, interior minister of the state of Schleswig-Holstein, Ralf Stegner, said at a televised press conference. He has been in Germany since 2004 and studies mechanical and electrical engineering, Mr. Stegner said. Another man, suspected of placing a similar bomb on a train the same day, is still at large.
The man being held is "in all likelihood" one of two suspects seen in surveillance videos released to the public on Friday as part of the investigation, Mr. Stegner said, adding that the arrest did not come from a tip from the public. He did not name the suspect.
In the videos, two men are shown on July 31 each carrying a suitcase at Cologne train station before boarding local trains from the same platform.The suitcases were later found on a train to Hamm in western Germany from Aachen and to Koblenz from Mönchenngladbach about 75 miles to the north.
The suspects are thought to be part of a domestic terrorist network, Mr. Stegner said, citing federal prosecutor Monika Harms. Ms. Harms was cited by the DPA news agency as saying the arrested man was 21 years old.
"The second suspect is still at large, so the threat persists," the president of the Federal Criminal Police, Germany's most senior police official, Jörg Ziercke, said. "We don't know how the second suspect will react."
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
"The weekend arrest of a Lebanese student suspected of trying to blow up two commuter trains last month prompted German authorities to warn that the country has become a target for Islamic terrorists..."
"Germany's refusal to take part in the U.S.-led war in Iraq once had Germans thinking Islamic terrorists would focus elsewhere, said Lesch's wife, Marita, 52, a teacher. "We didn't fight in Iraq, and until now we assumed that if we behaved well in the world, nothing would happen to us," she said."
"Michael Lüders, a Middle East expert and government policy consultant, said, "Germany is reorienting its (foreign) policy. It did not call for an immediate cease-fire (during Israeli attacks) in Lebanon, and that was disappointing in the Arab world. Some radical forces now think Germany should be punished," he said."
I hope Germany wakes up to the threat within.
And tell me again why we allow these people in here? Do we have a shortage of people here?
It's because liberals feel guilty living in such a blessed country, and their consciences won't be eased until they turn the entire country into a third world hellhole.
bump for publicity
Might get Germany thinking more seriously about the terrorist threat now that they've faced it on their own soil.
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