Free Republic

A lawyer says a German convert to Islam who was convicted over a thwarted plan to attack American soldiers and civilians in Germany has been granted early release from prison. Fritz Gelowicz was one of four men arrested in 2007 and convicted in 2010. A Düsseldorf court found that they operated as a cell of the radical Islamic Jihad Union and plotted to attack Americans at facilities including the U.S. Air Force's Ramstein Air Base. …

German federal prosecutors said Friday they have arrested a man suspected of helping a terrorist cell that allegedly plotted attacks against U.S. troops in Germany. The U.S. military's Ramstein Air Base is believed to have been one of the targets for plotters. The prosecutor's office identified the man only as "Kadir T.," and said he is a German of Turkish origin. He is suspected of acquiring a video camera and night-vision equipment for the Islamic Jihad Union group, prosecutors said. The items were allegedly shipped to Waziristan in Pakistan, prosecutors said. Four men trained by the Islamic Jihad Union are...

SNIPPET: "There was an unexpected twist in Germany's high-profile terror trial when the four men accused of planning massive car bombs on US targets in Germany took a time out for several hours. When they returned, their lawyers said they wanted to make full confessions." SNIPPET: "Adem Yilmaz was the first to show a change of attitude, asking the court for permission to talk things over with his three co-defendants. The judge was happy to oblige." SNIPPET: "Yilmaz told the court on Tuesday that he wanted to meet with the other alleged members of the so-called "Sauerland Cell" -- Fritz...

Two Muslim converts and two Turks go on trial in a bomb-proof courtroom in Düsseldorf today accused of plotting to blow up German civilians and US soldiers. “The world will burn!” boasted an intercepted e-mail sent between the accused, who are alleged to have wanted to wage an Islamic holy war in the heart of Europe. Three of the men — Fritz Gelowicz, 29, Daniel Schneider, 23 and the Turkish national Adem Yilmaz, 30 — are accused of attending a training camp on the Afghan-Pakistani frontier run by an Uzbek-based terror organisation known as the Islamic Jihad Union. Intelligence services...

PRESS RELEASE SNIPPET - QUOTE: HP-1313 Washington, DC--The U.S. Department of the Treasury today designated three members of a German Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) cell under Executive Order 13224 (E.O. 13224), which targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism. "We commend the vigilant and effective work of German authorities in apprehending this terrorist cell before it could carry out its brutal and horrifying attack plans," said Adam Szubin, director of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control. "In concert with this important law enforcement action, United Nations global sanctions provide a tool of unparalleled scope to...

HEIDELBERG, Germany — German federal police have sent out “wanted” posters for two Germans who they say are training at a Pakistan terrorist camp and planning suicide attacks such as one carried out in Afghanistan last month that killed two U.S. soldiers, according to German media. The two are members of an Islamist cell that German police busted in September when three of its other members were brewing up bombs, authorities said, to kill Americans in Germany. The two men in the posters — one a German, the other born in Lebanon but a resident of Germany — have been...

The prime suspect in the alleged German terror plot to blow up hundreds of people may have had contact with Mohammed Atta, the suicide pilot who smashed a hijacked plane into the Twin Towers. German police reports are vague about the encounter, but it has helped investigators to trace Fritz Gelowicz’s path from average Bavarian schoolboy to Islamic radical. His case has also highlighted the curious and sinister role of Neu-Ulm — a small township in the Roman Catholic heart of southern Germany — as a cradle of Islamic extremism. The connection between Gelowicz, 28, who was arrested this week,...