Reuters Thursday, 10 May 2007

BERLIN: German authorities have launched raids in six northern German states over concerns left-wing radicals were planning attacks to disrupt a G8 summit in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm next month, prosecutors said.

The federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement that some 900 security officials were involved in searches of 40 sites in Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony.

“We suspect those targeted, who belong to the militant extreme-left scene, of founding a terrorist organisation or being members of such an organisation, that is planning arson attacks and other actions to severely disrupt or prevent the early-summer G8 summit in Heiligendamm from taking place,” the office said.

The statement said German security officials suspected the group of being behind nine minor attacks in the Hamburg area and three in the Berlin region over the past two years.

The list of attacks included a well-publicised incident last December when a car in front of the home of deputy finance minister Thomas Mirow was set on fire and his house’s windows and walls splattered with paint.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned earlier this year that there was a risk of left-wing extremists launching attacks during Germany’s year-long presidency of the Group of Eight (G8) club of industrialised nations.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will host the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States at the Heiligendamm summit, which is likely to focus on climate change, global economic co-ordination and other hot foreign policy topics.
Germany has not experienced any major left-wing violence since the militant Red Army Faction (RAF), which waged a bloody two-decade long campaign of killings and kidnappings, announced in 1998 that it was disbanding.

Reuters | Thursday, 10 May 2007

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