DAR AL HARB / ISLAM - GERMANY / AUSTRIA: HOSTAGES, A WARNING / THREAT & THE 1400 YR OLD JIHAD

Islamist militants threaten to attack Germany, Austria; Govts urged to pull troops out of Afghanistan

DUBAI (AFP): Islamist militants threatened to attack Germany and Austria if they do not pull their troops out of Afghanistan, in a statement read out on Sunday by a masked man on a website linked to Al-Qaeda. The two governments sought to play down the threat, with Austrian Chancellor Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer saying: “The people have no reason to worry.” In the video statement the masked man said: “Germany’s participation in the US war on Islam and Muslims will lead only to... endangering Germany itself.

“We wonder where Germany’s interest lies in throwing 2,750 troops (to Afghanistan)... to fight in defence of the lies of (President George W.) Bush and his gang,” he said in the video posted on the so-called Voice of the Caliphate website. “In standing by the United States... you have provoked those whom you call terrorists to target you,” the man said in Arabic, with a German translation appearing on the screen as the flags of Germany and Austria appeared in front of a burning background.

The Voice of the Caliphate is an online television site launched in September 2005 by the Iraqi branch of the Al-Qaeda network of the Western world’s most wanted man, Osama bin Laden. Germany has almost 3,000 troops in the relatively stable north of Afghanistan, where it commands the International Security Assistance Force. With pressure mounting on Berlin, a militant Islamist group in Iraq has threatened in a videotape showing two purported German hostages to execute them if Germany keeps its troops in Afghanistan. The Kataeb Siham al-Haq (Righteous Arrows Battalions) said in the tape posted on Saturday on an Islamist website that it gave the German government 10 days to start the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan.

“Otherwise, you will not even see one corpse for these two agents,” said one of three masked gunmen who appeared standing behind the purported hostages. The German foreign ministry said it was reviewing Sunday’s video, the authenticity of which could not be verified, and the messages about the hostages in Iraq. The Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel reported that the victims were a woman in her 60s, who is married to an Iraqi doctor, and their son who is in his 20s. Last Thursday, a 65-year-old German aid worker was shot dead in Afghanistan.

The editor of London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi said the Islamists were targeting Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government “for its support for the policies of President George W. Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Abdel Bari Atwan said the threat against Germany might also be a response to the tougher measures taken by Berlin in recent months against fugitive Algerian Islamists. Sunday’s statement also threatened to attack Austria if its government did not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. “Austria was and still is one of the safest countries in the world... But if Austria came on to the list of countries targeted by the mujahedeen (holy warriors), the situation will change,” it said.

“To Austria we say: Your troops in Afghanistan do not represent a real force or a real threat to our brothers, the mujahedeen, but they represent important support for Bush and his gang,” it added. Addressing the government in Vienna, the statement said: “Don’t destroy the security of a whole country just for five soldiers you have sent to Afghanistan.” Gusenbauer told state television that Austria had no information about the threats, but that it was examining the situation carefully. A video posted by the group calling itself the “Arrows of Righteousness,” shows the abducted woman, identified as Hannelore Mariannee Krause. She was wearing a blue scarf over her head and eyeglassesx and is shown seated on the floor, next to her grown son.

“I am here threatened by these people, they will kill my son in front of my eyes, then they will kill me if the Germany forces do not pull out of Afghanistan,” she sobbed, speaking in German as an Arabic translation scrolled over the screen. The woman appeared to German Chancellor Angela Merkel to respond to the kidnappers’ demands. “Respectable Chancellor Merkel, I am terrified in this country as I have been detained for a long time,” the woman said. “I beg you to do anything to appease these men.”


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1) Islamist militants threaten to attack Germany, Austria; Govts urged to pull troops out of Afghanistan