Profiling! Hate! Islamophobia! “Germany Arrests 3 Al Qaeda Suspects,” from the Associated Press, April 29 (thanks to PRCS):
BERLIN — German police on Friday arrested three suspected members of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization who officials say posed a “concrete and imminent danger” to the nation.
Authorities did not say whether the three had planned specific targets and offered few details, but security officials said that all three suspects were of Moroccan origin. They also said that two were arrested were in the western German city of Duesseldorf and one in nearby Bochum. The arrests were based on suspicion they were planning a terror attack, they said.
The arrests “succeeded in averting a concrete and imminent danger, presented by international terrorism,” German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said in a statement. They showed “Germany remains a target of international terrorists.”…
[A U.S. official said:] “There have been five disrupted plots in Europe during the past four years — including a credible plot in Germany in 2007 — all of which demonstrate Pakistan-based Al Qaeda’s steadfast intent to attack the US and our allies.”…
Germany raised its security posture in November after receiving information from its own and foreign intelligence services that led authorities to believe a sleeper cell of some 20 to 25 people may have been planning an attack inside the country or in another European nation.
Around the same time Germany also received information from U.S. sources that an attack similar to that in Mumbai in Nov. 2008 that killed 166 may be planned for Germany, the official said. Later, Germany received information on possible attacks at Christmas or New Year’s….