23^rd  June 2007

The German government has received reports from U.S. intelligence sources that militant Islamists are threatening to commit suicide attacks on German soil.

"German security authorities have increased their vigilance and have taken extra measures to meet a potential threat by Islamic suicide bombers," German Interior Ministry spokesman Christian Sachs told reporters at a news conference in Berlin today.

German authorities have seen the exclusive video broadcast by ABC News on Monday, which showed a Taliban military commander introducing suicide teams assigned to carry out attacks in the United States, Canada, Germany and Great Britain.

Wolfgang Bosbach, a member of the German Parliament, said this latest scene was yet another mosaic stone in the Islamic terrorist picture, "We're not alone in this, but the danger is very real."   

"We can no longer assume the terror threat by Islamic militants to be abstract. There is clear evidence of concrete threats not only in Europe, but in particular in Germany," Bosbach, who is also Chancellor Angela Merkel's security expert, told ABCNews.com.

Earlier this month, two German nationals were captured along the border of Pakistan and Iran. The men are suspected of being militant Islamists and were carrying large amounts of cash and fake IDs.

Bosbach could not elaborate any further, but he confirmed Pakistani authorities indeed arrested "men with German background they considered dangerous when these men attempted to travel back to Germany."

Also today, a TV report out of Pakistan quoted German intelligence sources reporting "at least 10 to 12 'potential would-be terrorists' had left Germany recently to travel to Pakistan and Afghanistan to join terrorist training camps there."

ABC News first reported last month that U.S. and German officials feared a new terror attack on U.S. military personnel or tourists was in the advanced planning stages in Germany.

U.S. air marshals had been diverted to provide expanded protection of flights between Germany and the United States.

And as recently as last weekend, a German embassy convoy was attacked near Kabul. A vehicle was destroyed, but nobody was injured. 

Germany has around 3,000 troops serving in Afghanistan as part of NATO peacekeeping forces.

"The threat needs to be taken serious. We have information that attacks, as we saw recently in Afghanistan, could happen on German soil, too," said the German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble, referring to a recent suicide attack, which left three German soldiers dead when their convoy was attacked in Kabul. 

"The atmosphere reminds me of that during the summer of 2001,"  said August Hanning, secretary of state in the German Interior ministry. "We also saw some hints of the same kind then, and then there was 9/11. There certainly is no need for the public to panic, but there is definitely good reason to call for people's vigilance."