While the Dusseldorf trial was on, the German Police arrested in February,2010, two persons of immigrant origin with German passports, one of whom, a woman, was described by the media as the wife of Gelowicz on a charge of collecting money for the IJU from the Muslim community in Germany and sending it to the IJU through an intermediary in Turkey. They said a third person of immigrant origin wanted in this case was absconding. The police did not give the full names of the three persons. They were merely identified as 21-year-old Alican T, 31-year-old Fatih K, and a woman, 28-year-old Filiz G. They were charged in a local court in August, 2010, with supporting the IJU and an organization described as the German Taliban. They were also accused of recruiting members for Al Qaeda and spreading propaganda material online.
In July 2010, Ahmed Sidiqi, a German citizen of Afghan origin who had disappeared from Hamburg along with 11 other Muslims including his Indonesian wife in 2009, was arrested by a group of plain-clothed US soldiers in Kabul while he was going to the German embassy. Sidiqi went to Germany from Afghanistan in the early 1990s. He became a naturalised German citizen in 2001. He worked at Hamburg’s airport as a cleaner. In March,2009, he and his wife flew to Peshawar, where they joined 10 others including a German of Syrian descent, Rami Makanesi, a German of Iranian origin, Shahab Dashti and Naamen Meziche, a French citizen of Algerian origin.
According to the German news magazine Der Spiegel, Sidiqi told his US interrogators that after receiving training in Pakistan, he fought in Afghanistan and met Said Bahaji, who is wanted for involvement in 9/11. Sidiqi reportedly moved to Mir Ali, a border town in North Waziristan where he met Sheikh Younis al-Mauretani, who Sidiqi said had become Al Qaeda’s third most senior leader. The Sheikh told him about plans for a series of attacks in several European countries, including the UK, Germany and France, according to Der Spiegel. Sidiqi claimed that Osama bin Laden had approved the plot and also provided some funding.
According to the German news magazine Der Spiegel, Sidiqi told his US interrogators that after receiving training in Pakistan, he fought in Afghanistan”¦
The claims made by Sidiqi seem to have triggered concerns in US and European security agencies about the likelihood of Mumbai-26/11 style terrorist strikes in the UK, France and Germany involving commando style attacks with mixed modus operandi combining the use of hand-held weapons and explosives. The objective will be to punish EU countries playing a prominent role in the operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The Madrid terrorist strikes of March 2004 and the London terrorist strikes of July 2005 were directed against the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. The terrorist strikes planned now would seek to punish the West for its involvement in Afghanistan.
In the Madrid strikes, North African members of Al Qaeda played an active role. Pakistani suicide bombers played an active role in the London blasts. It is likely that a mix of jihadis of Pakistani (in UK), North African (in France) and Uzbek and Turkish origin (in Germany) could play a role in the Afghanistan-focused terrorist strikes now being planned. One found an Afghanistan focus even in the Mumbai—26/11 terrorist strikes by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) since many of the foreigners killed came from countries whose troops were fighting in Afghanistan.
Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban are looking for an Afghanistan-focused operation in Europe, but there are no indications that trained persons for such an operation might have already been dispatched to Europe. The current Drone strikes in North and South Waziristan, in which some persons of German origin had been killed, are intended to pre-empt any new terrorist strikes in Europe by killing those trained or being trained for this purpose before they could be dispatched to Europe.
The security alerts and travel advisories issued by the US and others indicate that despite the success of the Drone strikes, there is a fear that some trained jihadis might have already reached Europe. Ziercke, the head of Germany’s Federal Office of Criminal Investigation, reportedly said in a recent interview with the Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel that there was evidence that at least 70 Islamic radicals from Germany had undergone military training in Pakistan, and that 40 of them are believed to have gone on to fight coalition forces in Afghanistan.
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