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Thanks to Oorang for this post.

QUOTE:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1890027/posts?page=1170#1170

Austria arrests three with al Qaeda links
Wed 12 Sep 2007

VIENNA - Austria has arrested three people linked to al Qaeda who posted an video message on the Internet threatening attacks against Austria and Germany, Interior Minister Guenther Platter said on Wednesday.

The trio are suspected of producing the video, which demanded German and Austrian soldiers leave Afghanistan, but in electronic surveillance over several months police found no concrete indications that attacks were in the offing, he said. “Austria was not under threat of an attack at any time,” Platter told a news conference. “We could determine that based on the actions of the three.”

The arrests came a week after Germany said it foiled an Islamist militant plan to carry out “massive bomb attacks” on U.S. installations in the country. Germany arrested three men. Platter said he knew of no links between the German and the Austrian suspects, but said the surveillance had produced evidence the Austrians had contacts to al Qaeda.

Excerpted

http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnL12801344.html

Jihad Union hard-pressed to explain strange statement
Sep 12, 2007, 2007

Istanbul - The statement claiming reponsibility for planning an attack on the US airbase in Germany’s Ramstein earlier in the week by the Islamic Jihad Union from Uzbekistan is considered to be genuine by German’s Interior Ministry, but the message published on the internet raised more questions than it answered.

Firstly, why would a terrorist organization admit to planning an attack that has already been prevented by the security forces in the planning stages? The court appearances of two German Muslims and a Turk who were arrested on September 5 in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for plotting attacks in Germany were certainly complicated when the Islamic Jihad Union declared them ‘our brothers.’

Secondly, the internet message said that there would be further attacks against US and Uzbek consulates in Germany. At the same time, the message directed less criticism at the US than at Germany which uses the US airbase for logistical support to German troops in Afghanistan.

Thirdly, the message appeared in Arabic and Turkish. The Arabic was only used for quotations from the Koran, which is no surprise for an Islamist group, but the question remains why the terrorists used flawless Turkish for the message and not the Cyrillic script normally used in Uzbekistan.

Excerpted

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/features/article_1355163.php/Jihad_Union_hard-pressed_to_explain_strange_statement

1,170 posted on 09/12/2007 1:49:49 PM PDT by Oorang (Tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people - Alex Kozinski)