DUESSELDORF, Germany, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- Germany in 2006 only narrowly eluded a terror attack targeting a filled stadium during the FIFA Soccer World Cup, reports said Thursday.
According to an agent of the German Federal Criminal Office, Jihad Hamad and Youssef al-Haj Deeb, two Lebanese students, had planned to attack bomb a stadium during a World Cup game but dismissed the idea because of the high security precautions Germany had taken.
The pair then two weeks after the World Cup placed two homemade bombs on two regional trains in western Germany. Luckily, neither device exploded.
The agent, who appeared as a witness in the process against Haj Deeb, which started last month in the western German city of Duesseldorf, added that Hamad had told him in Lebanon that their goal was to kill as many people as possible.
Hamad has been tried in Lebanon and convicted to 12 years in prison. He has admitted that the bombing attempt was a response to the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad that had been reprinted by several newspapers all over Europe.
