Europe on high alert

2007-09-11 14:04

Ankara - A powerful bomb was found in the Turkish capital on Tuesday and German police mounted a major security operation at a US military base on the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

As Americans remembered the 2 749 people killed in the 2001 attacks in New York, Turkish police defused a large bomb hidden under a mini-bus parked in a multi-storey car park in central Ankara.

"The meticulous work of the police averted a possible catastrophe... I do not even want to think about what would have happened if the attack had succeeded," the capital's governor, Kemal Onal, told journalists.

He said the bomb involved "a large quantity of explosives", adding that there had been no immediate claim of responsibility.

Meanwhile, German police launched a major security operation at the US military airport at Spangdahlem, in the west of the country, after the base there received an anonymous bomb threat Monday afternoon.

"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'," police said.

Protective measures put in place

"The US armed forces immediately informed the police, who immediately put protective measures in place at the base, with the co-operation of the US security forces."

The threat came 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 over the alleged "massive" attack - two German converts to Islam and a Turk - were planning attacks to coincide with the September 11 anniversary.

Last week, police in Denmark also said they had "prevented a terrorist attack" with the arrest of eight men allegedly linked to al-Qaeda.

Turkey has been the target of several terror attacks in recent years, notably in November 2003, when vehicles packed with explosives rammed into two synagogues and, five days later, into the British consulate and a bank.

Sixty-three people were killed and 600 wounded. Six Turks and a Syrian were later jailed for life in Istanbul for their involvement in the attacks.

Threat 'real, permanent, constant'

Meanwhile in Italy, security was stepped up Tuesday after intelligence and anti-terror chiefs issued a warning about the importance of the US anniversary.

"The date of September 11 may be used to increase the media and propaganda impact of potential terrorist acts by Islamic fundamentalists," the Anti-Terrorism Strategic Analysis Committee (CASA) said on Monday.

Quoted by the Ansa news agency, it said that "even in the absence of specific signs of a threat", Italian authorities should "reinforce general preventative measures".

And in Paris on Tuesday, Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie warned that the terror threat against France was "real, permanent, constant".

"France is no more under threat than other countries, but also no less than others," she said on RTL radio.

Those responsible "are increasingly people who have been integrated into the countries (they live in), we saw this recently in Germany", she said.

Alliot-Marie added that the cause was "a certain number of crises - the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iraq, Afghanistan".

- AFP