Author: Agencies
Publication: Daily Times
Date: February 4, 2010
URL: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010%5C02%5C04%5Cstory_4-2-2010_pg7_4
Forty-three apartments alleged to be belonging
to radical Islamists were raided in Germany on Wednesday and three people
suspected of recruiting extremists to fight abroad were arrested, the German
police said.
Prosecutors in the southern city of Stuttgart
said some 300 police personnel had participated in the raids of the 43 premises
in the German states of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Hesse and North
Rhine-Westphalia. They believe the suspects, aged 24 and 59, ran recruitment
networks that sent over 100 Islamists to fight on foreign battlefields.
They have been accused of attempting to persuade
people to attend a religious and a language school in Egypt where radicals
are believed to recruit people for terrorist training camps. After the training,
some returned to Germany while others moved elsewhere, including Afghanistan
and Pakistan. They also said that several documents and computer hardware
were also seized during the nationwide swoop. Germany has never been a victim
of an attack by Islamist radicals, but the country, which has around 4,300
troops in Afghanistan and has therefore stepped up security during recent
years.
