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Jihad in Afghanistan

Authorities Fear German Islamist About to Commit Attack

Authorities have been on the trail of the German-born Muslim convert Eric B. for months. Now they fear that the young Islamist, who is currently in Afghanistan, is on the verge of committing a suicide attack.

DDP

German Islamist Eric B. is seen in an earlier video released by the Islamic Jihad Union.

In new Internet message from the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) terror group, which was intercepted by authorities in Berlin last Tuesday, the organization claimed responsibility for a suicide attack in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad. A photograph accompanying the message shows the perpetrator, who went by the nom de guerre Said Kurdi.

What has aroused the authorities' concerns is the fact that Eric B., 20, can also be seen in the photograph, which shows the two men kneeling in front of an IJU banner. According to a situation report compiled by the German authorities, the fact that B. is shown together with a suicide attacker "makes an imminent attack by B. even more probable."

The IJU has already published two propaganda videos featuring Eric B. The young man is one of around a dozen German-born Islamists who authorities believe to have traveled to the conflict area in Afghanistan. Although Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office has been searching for B. in Afghanistan for months, it has been several weeks since authorities have had any clues as to his location.

Eric B. is a German Muslim convert originally from Neuenkirchen in the western German state of Saarland. He is thought to have close ties to the so-called Sauerland Cell, who were arrested last year while apparently planning a terror attack in Germany.

The Islamic Jihad Union also claims to have trained Cüneyt Ciftci, a German-born Turkish citizen who is believed to have become the first German-born suicide bomber earlier this year when he detonated a truck bomb in front of a government building in Afghanistan's Khost region, killing two US soldiers.

dgs/spiegel

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