Help for German authorities
Foreign references thwarted many attack plans
02/06/2022, 08:05 am
International cooperation between secret services and security authorities is essential. In Germany alone, several attacks have been prevented since 2011. The decisive clues came from abroad.
Without information from foreign partners, a number of terrorist attacks planned in Germany in recent years might not have been prevented. According to the federal government, a total of 13 attacks have been thwarted by the security authorities in Germany since 2011, and three other attacks failed for technical reasons. “In six of these cases, findings from foreign intelligence services and security authorities were of essential importance for the prevention,” said the federal government in response to a written question from CDU MP Christoph de Vries.
The information transmitted from abroad was either the trigger for investigations or at least made an “outstanding contribution”, writes the Federal Ministry of the Interior in the answer. According to information from a foreign secret service, a couple who were preparing a bomb attack with the deadly poison ricin was arrested in Cologne-Chorweiler in June 2018. The headquarters of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is not far from the Islamists’ apartment.
“It confirms the impression that the security of our country is often in the hands of foreign partner services when it comes to thwarting Islamist terrorist attacks,” said de Vries. The German security authorities are very well positioned and highly motivated. In the fight against terrorism and organized crime, however, they also need sufficient legal powers and technical possibilities for effective danger prevention.
From the point of view of the CDU MP, this also includes the observation and evaluation of encrypted communication via messenger services such as Whatsapp. Anyone who, like Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann, refuses to use instruments such as source telecommunications surveillance and online searches within a legally narrow framework, “is acting grossly irresponsibly and is making sure that our security authorities are blind”.