German security authorities were proud of having pulled off a safe and successful 2006 Soccer World Cup. Now a German security official has revealed that a major attack on the tournament may have been averted — but the suspect got away. Ever since the 2006 World Cup came to an end, Germany has been basking in the glow of having pulled off a wildly successful tournament. But according to Bavaria’s interior minister, it almost ended in explosive failure. Joachim Herrmann, of the conservative Christian Social Union, told German television news channel N-TV on Thursday that police foiled a terror attack planned to be carried out in Munich on the first day of the World Cup in June 2006. He said that the public was deliberately not informed of the possible threat at the time to prevent panic. According to the station, a spokesman for the Bavarian Interior Ministry said that police began intensive observations of a lone man thought to be “associated with Islamist extremism” who was noticed acting suspiciously near Munich’s Allianz Arena soccer stadium. In the course of the surveillance, according to the spokesman, the suspect left Germany, perhaps as a result of growing suspicious that he was being watched.
