World

Germany considers monitoring converts to Islam on Internet

by merrie | September 7, 2007 at 09:48 pm

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Following the stunning news of the foiled terror plot this week German
authorities are considering ways to fight homegrown terrorists. A
proposal to conduct internet spying on all German converts to Islam is
being reviewed.
Guenther Beckstein, the interior minister in the German state of
Bavaria and a conservative leader of the southern wing of Chancellor
Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Party claims, "Germans converting to Islam should be watched because they tend to
show particular fanaticism in order to prove worthy of their new
religion"
Karl-Heinz Kamp, a terrorism expert asserts, the political debate on civil liberties versus security shouldn't be framed by a single plot

"The bigger lesson here, of course, is that Germans are now an international terrorism target," Kamp said. "That their names are Fritz and Daniel is shocking, but only means that the known spectrum of terrorists has now increased."

This week in Copenhagen, Danish authorities arrested nine people for plotting terror attacks, and Kamp and other terrorism experts believe the frequency of attacks in Europe is increasing.

Magnus Ranstorp, chief scientist for the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defense College, said that while security forces don't release information on all thwarted attacks, there are known to have been at least 40 and perhaps as many as 50 since Sept. 11, 2001.

"This is what we can expect for the future: The attack plots are going to come fast and furious," he said. "And, as is clear in both these attacks, they're operating in new vistas. Terrorism in Europe is a part of life now."