Hundreds of Potential Terrorists Live in Germany, Official Says

There are roughly 700 people in Germany who the interior ministry believes may be involved in extremist Islam circles, the ministry’s deputy head said. Dozens of them are under intense surveillance.

Terrorists’ targets tend to be crowded, public areas that are difficult to secure, Deputy Interior Minister August Hanning told the Sunday, Nov. 2, edition of Berlin’s BZ am Sonntag. «Suspects plan inhuman forms of attacks against so-called soft targets,» he told the paper in comments made available ahead of publication. Of the some 700 people in Germany suspected of being Islamic terrorists, a «double digit» number of them have been classified by the country’s 16 states as dangerous and are «under especially intense surveillance,» Hanning said. Radical Islamists in Germany have also taken part in terror training camps in the mountainous region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, added Hanning, who previously served as the head of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency.

November 1, 2008

DW World http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3758316,00.html