Germans foil hospital attack

2003-12-30 21:00

Hamburg - German authorities said on Tuesday they had uncovered plans by suspected Islamic extremists to launch a suicide car-bomb attack on a military hospital in the northern city of Hamburg.

Dirk Nockemann, the Hamburg senator responsible for internal affairs, said the militant Islamic group, Ansar al-Islam, which is alleged to have links to al-Qaeda, was likely to be behind the plans.

Citing United States intelligence sources, he said members of the group had planned a suicide-bomb attack, while an alternative target was the major US Rhein-Main air base in central Germany.

Security at the hospital was immediately stepped up on Tuesday and surrounding streets sealed off.

Police spokesperson Reinhard Fallak said that US soldiers had been treated in the past at the facility in the Wandsbek suburb of Hamburg, possibly including some who had served in Iraq.

No US troops are at the hospital, said another police official.

Passed on 'concrete evidence'

Fallak said there was no clear evidence of when the attack was planned, but that it involved extremists "from Europe" but outside Hamburg.

In a statement, police said that security sources had passed on "concrete evidence about people who want to carry out attacks on the hospital with a car bomb".

"The potential perpetrators are understood to come from Islamic terrorist circles."

Fallak said the evidence had been judged by police as "very serious".

Streets around the hospital have been closed and will remain so for as long as necessary, added police, who were working in conjunction with the army.

Meanwhile, police using sniffer dogs were checking out all cars in the area and controlling movement to and from the hospital. Fallak said no suspect car or bomb had been found.

The German defence ministry refused to give any information about what it knew of the plans. The federal prosecutor's office did not want to comment either.

The military hospital has 305 beds and handles some civilian services as well as military patients.

US authorities believe Ansar al-Islam has links to Al-Qaeda, the extremist network responsible for the September 11 2001 attacks in the United States.

The group's stronghold in northern Iraq was devastated by US air strikes in early April during the US invasion of Iraq.

However, US commanders have said Ansar al-Islam has made a strong comeback, infiltrating Iraq from Iran and setting up operations in the Baghdad area.

German intelligence services believe about 100 Ansar al-Islam militants are in Germany, mainly in the south of the country.

- SAPA