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Pedro Gonçalves

Terror Threat: Germany Warns of al-Qaida Attacks Before September Election - SPIEGEL ON... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,629169,00.html

Germany Al-Qaeda Afghanistan Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb BKA

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 08 Jun 09 - Cached
  • German intelligence agencies believe al-Qaida is planning attacks on Germans abroad and possibly in Germany ahead of the September 27 general election as revenge for Germany's military mission in Afghanistan and to put pressure on Berlin to withdraw its forces
  • The assessment is based on a warning by the US government that the leadership of al-Qaida in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan has decided to attack Germany, and that the North African branch of al-Qaida -- al-Qaida of the Islamic Maghreb -- has been tasked with carrying it out.
  • Germany's domestic intelligence agency (the Office for the Protection of the Constitution) and the BKA Federal Criminal Police Office believe that German company offices in Algeria and German citizens across North Africa are especially at risk. But authorities are also warning about possible attacks on German soil.
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  • The new assessment is in keeping with the high number of videos from Afghanistan attacking German government policy. At the end of last week, a new propaganda film by the Islamic Jihad Union emerged and threatened attacks. In early 2009, Bonn-based Islamist Bekkay Harrach, who has gone underground in Afghanistan, threatened attacks on Germany. Harrach is believed to play an important role in al-Qaida.
Argos Media

Al-Qaida group demands release of Abu Qatada or British hostage will be killed | World ... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...alqaida-north-africa-hostages

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb Abu Qatada

shared by Argos Media on 27 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Al-Qaida's North African wing has threatened to kill a British tourist taken hostage in the Sahara unless the radical cleric and terrorism suspect Abu Qatada is released within 20 days.
  • Qatada, once described by a Spanish judge as "Osama bin Laden's righthand man in Europe", is being held in Britain pending deportation to his native Jordan, where in 1999 he was convicted in his absence of conspiracy to cause explosions and sentenced to life imprisonment. The charges related to bombings at the American school and the Jerusalem hotel in Jordan. He was convicted a second time in 2000 over a plot to bomb tourists.
  • "We demand that Britain release Sheikh Abu Qatada, who is unjustly [held], for the release of its British citizen. We give it 20 days as of the issuance of this statement," the group al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said in a posting on an Islamist website yesterday. "When this period expires, the mujahideen will kill the British hostage."
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  • The threat comes after AQIM last week released two of the hostages, Marianne Petzold, from Germany, Gabriella Greitner, from Switzerland. Greitner's husband would be held "until we have achieved our legitimate demands", the group said yesterday. Two Canadian diplomats - Robert Fowler, the UN special envoy for Niger, and his aide, Louis Guay - who were kidnapped in a separate incident near Niger's capital, Niamey, in December, were also freed on Wednesday.
  • AQIM had demanded the release of 20 of its members detained in Mali and other countries. Details of the deal reached over the four victims freed so far remain murky, but there has been speculation that a ransom was paid. Canada has denied making any payment to the kidnappers, but said it could not speak for other governments.
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