Germans in Afghanistan await terror attack

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan, June 12 (UPI) -- The terror threat for Germans stationed in Afghanistan has risen sharply.

According to a media report, the German military in Afghanistan has received tips that terrorist attacks targeting Germans are imminent. After the German military leadership in Mazar-i-Sharif received several warnings from informed sources, it tightened its security measures. "We are expecting an attack basically any minute," an unnamed source told Monday's Berliner Zeitung newspaper.

According to a report first published by German financial daily Handelsblatt and confirmed by the German Foreign Ministry, a German diplomat in Kunduz has warned the military that several terrorist sleeper cells are active in northern Afghanistan, where Germany has stationed some 3,000 soldiers tasked with leading reconstruction efforts for the International Security Assistance Force.

Last month, three German soldiers were killed in Kunduz when they were trying to shop for refrigerators for the German camp. Since then, the Germans have stopped patrolling on foot in Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz and Faizabad, the three larger cities in which they are operating.