GERMANY: GERMAN INTELLIGENCE CHIEFS HAVE SAID THAT BOMBINGS OF BRITISH TARGETS IN TURKEY LOOK LIKE AL QAEDA ATTACKS

Record ID: 358645

  • Title: GERMANY: GERMAN INTELLIGENCE CHIEFS HAVE SAID THAT BOMBINGS OF BRITISH TARGETS IN TURKEY LOOK LIKE AL QAEDA ATTACKS
  • Date: 20th November 2003
  • Summary: (EU) PULLACH, GERMANY (NOVEMBER 20, 2003)(REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. SLV JOURNALISTS AT NEWS CONFERENCE / PAN TO WIDE 0.08 2. MCU (German) ERNST UHRLAU, COORDINATOR OF GERMANY'S INTELLIGENCE SERVICES, SAYING: "The choice of British targets in Istanbul on a day when Bush was in Great Britain was a different mode of conflict at eye level. Al Qaeda see
  • Embargoed: 5th December 2003 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PULLACH, BERLIN AND JENA, GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Reuters ID: LVA2ARUGJ924FMI4VF01B23C3502
  • Story Text: German intelligence chiefs have said that bombings
    of British targets in Turkey looked like al Qaeda attacks
    deliberately timed to coincide with President George W.

    Bush's visit to London.




    Ernst Uhrlau, coordinator of Germany's intelligence
    services, said in Pullach near Munich on Thursday (November
    20) the choice of British targets on a day when Bush was in
    Great Britain was a symbolic way for al Qaeda to meet
    America, its declared chief enemy, at eye level.

    At least 25 people were killed in twin attacks near the
    British consulate and outside the headquarters of
    British-based HSBC bank in Istanbul.

    August Hanning, head of foreign intelligence, said the
    high professionalism of the attacks, the symbolic targets
    and simultaneous explosions pointed to al Qaeda as the
    perpetrators.

    "This was a typical attack scenerio which we know from
    other attacks which we attribute to Al Qaeda. We see that
    symbolic targets were attacked", Hanning told a news
    conference.

    Hanning said al Qaeda, initially weakened when the
    United States drove it from its Afghan bases and routed its
    Taliban protectors in 2001, had now regenerated itself.

    He refused to speculate on whether a sequence of three
    al Qaeda-style bombings in Saudi Arabia and Turkey in less
    than two weeks was a precursor to a larger wave of terror
    attacks.

    German authorities increased security around the British
    and Turkish embassies in Berlin following the attacks.

    Policemen blocked the street and erected barricades in
    front of the British embassy.

    German Interior Minister Otto Schily said that the
    attacks carried the signature of Al Qaeda.

    Speaking to journalists before a meeting with German
    State Interior ministers in Jena, Schily said: The pattern
    of these attacks show us that they follow the propaganda
    stemming from the perimeter of Al Qaeda.




  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register