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Europe

Kurd-Turk tension in Germany

2007-11-06

Kurds and Turkish nationalists took to the streets of German cities Saturday to demonstrate against one another as tension rose amid portents of war in Turkey's south-east. Apart from a brawl in the port city of Hamburg, the demonstrations passed off without violence. The nationwide turnout on both sides totalled more than 10,000, according to police figures. German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned in the newspaper Bild am Sonntag, set to appear Sunday, that the ethnic conflict could radicalize both Kurds and Turks living in Germany. He appealed for protests to stay peaceful. One of the biggest protests against the Kurdistan Workers Party PKK was held in the southern city of Nuremberg, with 7,000 Turkish nationalists joining the march. At a pro-PKK demonstration in Hamburg, 2,000 people marched past shoppers along main streets under close scrutiny by the police. There was a punch-up when a man held a Turkish flag over them from a bridge. In the western city of Cologne, police kept rival groups apart. A week ago Turks and Kurds brawled with one another in Berlin, injuring more than a dozen people.

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Europe

Germany's intelligence service worried about megacities

2007-11-02

A relatively clear-headed look into the future. He doesn't even once mention global warming! Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (BND) views with alarm developments in some of the world's huge cities, where national police forces are on the retreat, BND President Ernst Uhrlau said in Berlin Thursday. Uhrlau, who does not reveal his thoughts in public often, named Mumbai, Mexico City and Jakarta, saying they had become partially ungovernable. He noted the rise of private security firms to protect wealthier residents in sealed communities or to support the army, as in Iraq. "The increasing privatisation of core state responsibilities in the military and security areas carries with it the danger - even in Western states - of the erosion of the state's monopoly on the use of force," Uhrlau said. "The increasing privatisation of core state responsibilities in the military and security areas carries with it the danger - even in Western states - of the erosion of the state's monopoly on the use of force" He was addressing a conference in Berlin on the theme "Collapse of Order," attended by politicians, diplomats and intelligence service personnel from a number of countries. International security was being compromised by the retreat of police and military in the face of terrorists, militias and drug dealers in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, he said. "Some states are now only partially able to carry out their original core responsibilities - protecting their people from violence," Uhrlau said. This could lead to the destabilisation of entire regions and promote international terrorism, he warned. Afghanistan provided a good example of how a "failed state" had provided a base for the al-Qaeda network, Uhrlau said. Europe had its own problems, particularly in the Balkans, where the causes of conflict were "far from overcome." German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble called for closer cooperation between German and other intelligence services. He pointed to the cracking in early September of a major German Islamist terror cell with the assistance of other intelligence services.

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Europe

EU rejects murder as tool to fight terror

2007-07-13

The European Union does not support the idea of using assassinations in the fight against terrorism, EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini was quoted as saying on Thursday. Frattini was responding to comments made by German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who said in an interview that Germany should clarify under what conditions the constitution permits the state to target and kill terrorists. “The fact that we fight terrorism cannot mean that we kill people. I’m against all forms of the death penalty.” “The fact that we fight terrorism cannot mean that we kill people,” Frattini said in an interview with Financial Times Deutschland daily. “I’m against all forms of the death penalty,” he added. Jeesix H. Christ Almighty. Can we at least rough 'em up? Panties on their heads is right out. In an interview published in this week’s issue of German weekly Der Spiegel, Schaeuble said: “Imagine someone knew what cave Osama bin Laden is sitting in. A remote-controlled missile could then be fired in order to kill him.” Schaeuble also pressed for changes in laws to allow pre-emptive detention of suspected militants and said authorities should have the right to prevent people they deem dangerous from using the Internet and mobile phones.

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Afghanistan

Two suspected Taliban killed in Helmand clash

2007-03-13

NATO and Afghan troops clashed with suspected Taliban insurgents on Monday in southern Afghanistan, shortly before calling in an airstrike on a compound that left two militants dead, a spokesman said. The clash started when militants opened fired and lobbed mortars toward NATO and Afghan troops in the Gereshk district of Helmand province, said Squadron Leader Dave Marsh, a spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. Two Afghans and one NATO soldier were lightly wounded in the clash, Marsh said. A tribal leader said that western forces killed five Afghan civilians in the airstrike in Helmand. The elder, Meera Jan, said civilian houses were hit in the attack. As well as the five people killed, four were wounded, he said. A spokeswoman for NATO troops in Afghanistan said an airstrike had been carried out in the Gereshk district of Helmand province late on Sunday but NATO forces were not involved. A spokesman for a separate US-led force said he had no information about any air strike. Must have been the Swedish air force on a marketing run for the Grippen. Meanwhile, during a search operation in neighbouring Kandahar province, Afghan troops arrested a “high-ranking suicide attack coordinator” in Panjwayi district, the ISAF said on Monday. An ISAF statement said that Mullah Mohammad Wali organised suicide attacks in Kandahar and worked for the Taliban. Separately, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said on Monday New Zealand would extend its military commitment in Afghanistan to September 2008. New Zealand has had 120 soldiers serving in a provincial reconstruction team in Bamiyan province for 3-1/2 years and their term would be extended for another year, Clark said. “The objective is to ensure that Afghanistan does not revert to being a failed state and again become a haven for terrorists,” Clark said in a statement. Defence Minister Phil Goff told a press conference the security situation in Bamiyan province was less dangerous than other areas in the country. Under the commitment, New Zealand will also supply a small number of soldiers to help train the Afghan National Army, work at the International Security Assistance Force headquarters and work in a medical unit at Kandahar. A New Zealand frigate will be deployed to the Arabian Gulf in the middle of next year as part of a multi-national maritime security force and four police will also help train local police in Afghanistan. German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Monday that Germany would not bow to terrorist threats demanding the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan. “We will not be blackmailed,” Schaeuble told RBB radio. He added, however, that the government took seriously threats made at the weekend by two Islamist groups to attack Germany and to execute two German hostages being held in Iraq unless Berlin ended its Afghanistan mission. “We are part of a global target. We should have no illusions that we are as much under threat as Spain, England or other nations,” Schaeuble told RBB. He said German soldiers were also contributing “to our own security” by helping to stabilise Afghanistan. Germany has almost 3,000 troops in northern Afghanistan, where it commands the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

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Europe

German interior minister: EU should forbid full face veil

2007-01-27

European Union member states "should act to stop" Muslim women from wearing the full face veil, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Wednesday. "The full veil runs contrary to the achievements of the European civilization," Schaeuble told reporters after a meeting with the European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee. Does he read Rantburg? Schaeuble, whose country currently runs the agenda-setting EU presidency, said that communication with other people was a responsibility for the European citizen. "You cannot communicate with the person wearing it (the full veil)," the minister said, adding: "Our communication is also to a great extent non-verbal." I wonder if Herr Schaeuble hails from ...say, Bavaria. Schaeuble said he does not favour introducing European laws on the wearing of a full face veil. However, it would be an "incorrect understanding of tolerance if we were not brave enough to express ourselves on that." Schaeuble also said that the EU should promote the training of imams. Maybe he only reads the Defender-Scimitar and Times Picayune...but not for the articles. But that such courses as well as the education of Muslim children should be held in the language of the EU member state. Germany has said that it wants to use its six-month term at the 27-member bloc's helmet to establish an EU-wide dialogue with Muslim leaders to improve integration, defuse tensions and fight "home-grown terrorism."

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Europe

Custody confirmed for Lebanese in Germany train bomb plot

2006-08-21

KARLSRUHE, Germany - A Lebanese Muslim student accused of membership in a previously unknown terrorist group that narrowly failed to blow up two German passenger trains three weeks ago was remanded in custody on Sunday, a day after his arrest. Police say the two bombs only failed to explode July 31 because of a construction flaw. The devices, concealed in suitcases, could have killed many people as did the Islamist bomb attacks on a Madrid train in 2004 and London trains last year. ‘The threat has never been closer to us than now,’ said German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble on German television. Perhaps now you guys will wake up a little? The 21-year-old man, identified only as Gunter Youssef Mohamad E H, appeared before a magistrate in Germany’s federal justice capital, Karlsruhe, after being flown there by police helicopter from the northern port city of Kiel where he was arrested in a station. German prosecutor-general Monika Harms said the Lebanese was seized as he tried to flee Kiel by train before dawn on Saturday. Timers in the suitcases went off simultaneously as the trains approached the cities of Hamm and Koblenz, north and south of Cologne, but failed to detonate propane gas and petrol in the cases, police say. The prosecutors said Sunday the arrested man had not stayed with his suitcase, but had left the train before it reached Koblenz. According to the prosecutor, the 25-kilo bomb would have unleashed a powerful shockwave, with petrol causing a fireball. Police said in Kiel on Saturday that he had been taking a college course that combined engineering, information technology and electronics in Kiel since last year. Fellow students in a hostel described him as very religious. The police said it was too early to specify the motive behind the attempted attacks. No, no, we wouldn't want to impugn his religious motives now would we?

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Europe

NATO AWACS jets 'likely' to guard German World Cup

2006-01-06

NATO surveillance jets will likely guard German airspace during the 2006 football World Cup, an Alliance spokesman said Thursday. The AWACS planes carry early warning systems to provide airborne surveillance and command and control functions to the armed services. Robert Firman, a spokesman at Germany's NATO AWACS base in Geilenkirchen, said it was "very likely" that jets from the base would be deployed over Germany during the World Cup, which runs June 9 to July 9. The AWACS flights have been called for by German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. There are fears of terrorist attacks on the World Cup and the newspaper Die Welt this week said the games were seen as a "a premium terrorist target." All well and good. HOWEVER: Meanwhile a standoff developed between environmental activists and the Dutch authorities Thursday over the planned felling of trees along the German border to improve safety for NATO AWACS aircraft using the nearby Geilenkirchen airfield. Dozens of activists of the organization Groenfront! (Green Front) climbed trees to build huts and hang protest banners, ignoring an order to vacate the woodland near the town of Schinveld in the southeastern province of Limburg. Although the order to vacate went into effect early Thursday, police and military helicopters monitoring the activists did not intervene as locals brought in refreshments. The Dutch Environment Ministry has ordered taller trees over a 20-hectare area to be felled and a 6-hectare area to be cleared entirely to facilitate the take-off and landing of AWACS aircraft at the Geilenkirchen airbase across the border in Germany. Indications from across the German border were that the trees would be felled by the end of next week.

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