Posted on 09/06/2002 11:52:17 AM PDT by grimalkin
BERLIN (Reuters) - Amid fears of September 11 anniversary attacks, German officials said Friday they had arrested a Turkish national in possession of explosives and announced the U.S. arrest of an Afghan-born German citizen.
The German prosecutor's office said U.S. authorities had arrested an Afghan-born German from the city of Hamburg, where three September 11 hijackers once lived, on suspicion of planning attacks.
The prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe said U.S. officials had arrested the man in New York and said he was now being held in Virginia. It said the man traveled from Germany to the United States in mid July and was arrested in late August.
U.S. officials told Germany there was evidence of possible attacks planned by the 39-year-old man, the office said. Germany was able to identify him and opened a criminal case on charges of membership in a terrorist organization.
Hamburg has been a focus of investigations into the September 11 attack because Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 19 kamikaze hijackers, and two other lead pilots lived and studied for years in the northern port city.
Police are looking for several others from Hamburg in connection with the September 11 attack.
In a separate case, a spokeswoman in Stuttgart in southwest Germany said police had arrested a 24-year old Turkish man near the tourist city of Heidelberg. He said the region's interior minister would give details at 1800 GMT Friday.
The Heidelberg area is home to U.S. military facilities and is a popular destination for American tourists and students studying in Germany.
ZDF television reported that officials believe the man was planning an attack on a U.S. installation in the Heidelberg area and said he may not have been acting alone. It said he was being checked for possible links to the al Qaeda network.
TIMELY ARRESTS
German Interior Minister Otto Schily said Wednesday authorities had reviewed 500 tip-offs of possible new attacks since September 11 but found no evidence of a concrete plot to mark the first anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Center next week.
Security officials worldwide are now on the alert for any violent acts to mark the first anniversary of the attacks.
"We cannot rule out that sleeper agents live even here in Germany or in Europe or elsewhere," Ulrich Kersten, the head of Germany's Federal Crime Agency, said this week. "What we know for sure is that in Europe and in Germany there are people who are ready to commit violence in a jihad."
Some conservatives who are running against the ruling coalition of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder say they expect an increase in anti-terrorism arrests ahead of the tight September 22 election.
"The German government would surely be happy to be able to put forward some arrests before September 22," conservative member of parliament Wolfgang Bosbach told a German newspaper this week.
In Germany, police arrested a 25-year-old German-born Turk who was in possession of explosives and chemicals near the tourist city of Heidelberg on Thursday. They also detained his 23-year-old American girlfriend who works as a civilian at a U.S. base supermarket.snip...
Emphasis mine. It seems like this version has a little more meat on it. So his girlfriend was working in the commissary it seems. She could've been an asset to smuggle the device on post.
...The 25-year-old Turkish man and his 23-year-old fiancee both indicated a hatred for Jews, Schaeuble said. Neither were identified, but U.S. officials in Washington said the woman had dual U.S. and Turkish citizenship.
Their occupations would have given both the access necessary to carry out the planned attack, Schaeuble indicated. The man worked in a chemical warehouse in nearby Karlsruhe. The woman worked in a supermarket at a U.S. installation in Heidelberg, where some 16,000 American soldiers, family members and civilian workers are stationed.
There were no signs of heightened alert at the Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg Friday evening. Joggers ran past the fenced-in headquarters and children played outside at military housing across the street.
U.S. Army Europe spokesman Sandy Goss said he had no details about a possible target.
"All I know is there were two people arrested and we're monitoring the situation closely because we take all these reports seriously," Goss said.
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