Agence France-Presse,
TRIER, Germany: German police launched a major security operation at a US military airport following an anonymous bomb threat, police in this western German city said on Tuesday.
The US military base at Spangdahlem received an anonymous call on Monday around 1730 GMT, a police spokesman told AFP, who did not rule out that it could have been a hoax.
“The man, who spoke in German with an accent that could have been Turkish or Russian, threatened to attack the Spangdahlem base with at least four accomplices. During the call, there was mention of 'bombs'”, the police said in a statement.
“The US armed forces immediately informed the police, who immediately put protective measures in place at the base, with the cooperation of the US security forces.”
The threat came on the eve of the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and less than a week after German authorities said they had foiled an Islamist plot to blow up US installations in Germany.
There was speculation that the three men arrested — two German converts to Islam and a Turk — were planning attacks to coincide with the September 11 anniversary.
The US military confirmed that it had stepped up security at the Spangdahlem base.
“While we have no additional information to validate a direct attack against Spangdahlem, we take every threat seriously,” a spokeswoman, Sergeant Andrea Knudson, told AFP.
“The 52 Fighter Wing has received a threat against its assets and specifically against Spangdahlem airbase. The threat came on Monday via telephone.
“The security of the base and its people, military and civilian, is critical and we are taking measures to ensure they are protected,” she added.
There are 5,000 Americans and 800 Germans stationed at the base, according to German ZDF television.
The German police said that given the timing of the call, there was a possibility that the caller was “simply an attention-seeker”.
A police spokesman in Trier said police were concentrating on trying to identify the anonymous caller and to establish from where the call had been made.
“The investigation is underway, but we have no further information for the moment,” he told AFP.
Prior warnings by telephone have not been known to have been given in Islamist attacks in recent years.
German authorities said they had foiled a “massive” attack with the three arrests last week.
The three men were seized at a rented holiday home in the Sauerland region in western Germany where they had stockpiled 12 barrels of hydrogen peroxide which they intended to use to make car bombs, federal prosecutors said.
German media reported that the three-man cell had received orders from contacts in Pakistan at the end of August to carry out attacks by mid-September.
Der Spiegel magazine said the suspected plot leader, 28-year-old Fritz Gelowicz, had received a phone call from a member of the Islamic Jihad Union, a radical group linked to Al-Qaeda, and was given a two-week deadline to carry out an attack.
