A CIA official on Monday warned that the US intelligence agency had received indications al-Qaeda was planning to launch terrorist attacks in Germany with the aim of influencing the country’s general election this autumn. The anonymous official from the Central Intelligence Agency told German news agency DDP that Washington’s intermediaries in Pakistan had supplied information on German Muslims plotting to return from training camps in northwestern Pakistan just a few weeks before the parliamentary election in September to prepare attacks on “high-ranking targets” in Germany.
The official said it is highly likely the attacks would be carried out by suicide bombers, who could move unnoticed among society. al-Qaeda wants to use “massive violence” to influence the German voters to push the next government to withdraw German troops from Afghanistan. Referring to concerns recently mentioned by German security services about the increasing number of threats directed at Germany, the official said US intelligence agencies believe that al-Qaeda could be planning an attack in Germany “along the lines of the attacks in Spain” in 2004. The horrific terrorist attacks on four commuter trains in Madrid on March 11 that year led to a change of government in the national elections three days later and to the immediate withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq.
