Playing the Fear-of-Terror Game

U.S. intelligence agencies say there’s a threat of terrorist attacks in Berlin. German agencies reject that view. What’s really going on?

Whenever there are credible reasons to suspect an imminent terrorist attack, intelligence services should warn the population. If there are no concrete and credible reasons, or the situation has not appreciably changed over several months, they should refrain from doing so.

For about a week now, U.S. sources have been sending reports of imminent terrorist activity in Germany almost on a daily basis. At the beginning of the week, these came to a climax with word that terrorists were planning attacks on the Berlin main railway station, the television tower and the Hotel Adlon.

In Paris, terrorists had the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame cathedral in their sights, while in London the royal family was in danger. At least that’s what Fox News was reporting, citing U.S. intelligence sources.

Reportedly, Osama bin Laden himself had personally ordered the attacks and was also financing them. On the strength of those reports, the terrorists were assumed to already be en route to Europe to carry out attacks similar to the one on a hotel in Mumbai, India, in November 2008.

All this information was reportedly given by a German-Afghan named Ahmad Sidiqi to U.S. intelligence agents who then promptly passed it on to the American media. Sidiqi had been captured by U.S. forces last July in Kabul and was later interrogated by U.S. military and civilian intelligence specialists at Bagram Air Base. The conditions under which he volunteered the information have yet to be revealed.

No Concrete Danger of Attack

But European security officials weren’t in the least upset by what Sidiqi revealed. German as well as French intelligence services say there is no concrete danger of an attack; there are always rumors and undercurrents about attack plans circulating throughout the applicable forums and networks. But these are always rather nebulous and have yet to be confirmed by any further indications. Thus, no acute danger of a terrorist attack exists at present.

According to intelligence information, the mood in the jihadist camps is anything but bellicose. This is partly due to the constant drone attacks launched by the U.S. and partly because of the archaic living conditions in the camps, where most necessities are often in short supply. These self-styled “warriors of god” have to appeal for funding on the Internet out of sheer survival necessity.

The number of those who find life unbearable there and want to leave appears to be on the increase. But, as a rule, they have no other option but to stay, because they have neither money nor identity papers, both of which were taken from them when they joined the jihad. Numerous combat deaths are also demoralizing those who came from Germany to join. Their mentors, Bekkay Harrach and Eric Breininger, were the latest to die.

Despite that, the U.S. authorities still warn of attacks in Germany. This past weekend, they even issued a travel advisory.

Why does the United States persist in doing this? Do they simply know more than anyone else? Still, that’s been the case often enough. It was the Americans, after all, who uncovered the assassination plots of the Sauerland group and tipped off German authorities. This time, however, things appear to be different. In any case, the German Federal Intelligence Service, the security service and the Federal Criminal Police office are all vehemently at odds with the portrayals in the U.S. media.

Have relations between the American intelligence services and their European counterparts been damaged to such an extent that agreement about the severity of any given threat is now impossible? Both sides deny this and say they’re working well together.

If so, the American government must then ask itself why it is staging a warning where there’s no imminent danger of attack. Anyone in the security community who asks that question is reminded of the unstable domestic political situation in the United States. The economic numbers are weak, the number of unemployed is still on the rise, and the country has yet to overcome this crisis.

Bizarre Behavior

Right-wing tea party radicals exploit this instability for their own political purposes, making it likely that Obama’s Democratic Party is in for some bitter losses in the coming congressional elections.

Does the Obama administration believe it can score points with U.S. voters by claiming massive bomb attacks against North Waziristan will prevent catastrophic terrorist attacks in Europe? That’s a claim nobody even dares to express aloud.

But in the absence of any coherent explanation for its actions, the suspicion arises that the U.S. government is toying with the fears of the European people. Is Obama that weak in the face of his domestic opposition that he has to resort to such measures? If that suspicion proves to be even only partly true, the U.S. government truly has good reason to worry.