Via Lucianne:
German President Johannes Rau has cancelled a planned visit to Djibouti after German security services warned him of an assassination plot, his office says. The statement said the security services had received information that an Islamist group planned to kill him during a visit to the Horn of Africa state to meet German troops stationed there. The decision to cancel the visit comes amid heightened security fears following the recent train bombings in Madrid by a group suspected to be linked to al Qaeda. "In the judgement of the services responsible, there was a considerable and concrete personal risk to the President," the president’s office said.
But Djibouti’s Communications Minister Rifki Abdoulkader Bamakhrama told Reuters he was not aware of any plot against Rau, who had also been due to meet his Djibouti counterpart. "There is no plot against any president from any country... There is no risk signalled by our security service," he said, insisting that his country was stable.
"I have just heard that the president’s trip was cancelled. The Germans are afraid of an attack and of course are free to decide whatever they want." Although it opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq, Germany has cracked down hard on militant Islamists since it emerged that several of the plotters behind the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States had lived in the country as students. German navy personnel are serving in Djibouti as part of the U.S.-led "Enduring Freedom" operation against al Qaeda militants. Dozens of suspected militants have been arrested in the Horn of Africa over the past 15 months. Rau, who has held the largely ceremonial office of German head of state since 1999, steps down this year and is expected to be succeeded by the head of the International Monetary Fund, Horst Koehler. |