German Officials Report Increased Threat of Terrorist Attacks

By MARK LANDLER
New York Times

FRANKFURT, June 22 — Germany faces a heightened threat of terrorist attacks because of its military involvement in Afghanistan, government security officials here said Friday. The danger level, they warned, was comparable to the months before the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

Three German residents, believed to be radical Islamic militants, were arrested in Pakistan in recent days, according to the German Federal Criminal Police. Officials here suspect them of traveling to the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan to enter terrorist training camps.

“This tells us that German interests are in danger of being attacked, for example, by suicide bombers,” a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Christian Sachs, said in a telephone interview.

He said the authorities did not have concrete evidence of a terrorist plot within Germany. But the police have tightened border security and are scrutinizing people traveling to and from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

German soldiers and civilians in Afghanistan face the most immediate threat, officials said, citing an attack last weekend on a convoy outside Kabul that included vehicles from the German Embassy. There were no injuries, but a vehicle was destroyed, a government spokesman said.

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