Exactly one year ago, German investigators arrested three Muslim extremists. They wanted to build a bomb in southern Germany capable of killing as many as possible. The ringleader was born and raised in a German family. But how did he become a terrorist?
Fritz Gelowicz knows exactly what he wants the bomb to look like months before it is actually built. As it takes shape before his eyes, he imagines it as a vision sent from Allah -- a very bloody vision.
"Two hundred kilograms with shrapnel, inshallah, now that'll make a big explosion."
As many casualties as possible, that is the goal of the simple plan that Fritz Gelowicz is discussing on this summer day in July of last year with Adem Yilmaz, his closest confidant and presumed co-conspirator. The two men are driving a rented Ford S-Max from Stuttgart to the town of Freudenstadt in the Black Forest, in south-western Germany. They have three canisters of hydrogen peroxide solution in the trunk, which Gelowicz purchased at a chemical supply shop in Hodenhagen near the northern German city of Hannover.
The hydrogen peroxide is the stuff of Gelowicz's visions. When the solution is boiled down and other ingredients are added, the resulting mixture can be highly explosive. The brew is called "Satan's Mother" in the terrorist community.
The drive to Freudenstadt, where the two men will deposit the hydrogen peroxide in a rented garage, provides deep insights into the mind of Fritz Gelowicz. The rental car is bugged, enabling investigators to listen in on the conversations between the two men.
'Allah Has Blinded Them'
Gelowicz and Yilmaz talk shop about the number of bombs and victims. They expect there to be at least 150 casualties, with the target being someplace big -- a place like Frankfurt Airport. Yilmaz suggests the central German city of Giessen, noting that there are some really big American discos there. He says that he wants "to maximize the impact, Achi, really: another Sept. 11."
The word "Achi" means "my brother" in Arabic. "What I've done, Achi, now that's something they could really lock me up for, Achi," says Yilmaz. "Well, sure, they'd have to lock us all up," Gelowicz replies, and Yilmaz chuckles. "If only they knew," Gelowicz continues, with a note of condescension in his voice. "Allah has blinded them."
In this case, however, Allah was not on the side of Fritz Gelowicz. In fact, Allah had blinded the two Islamists -- and had not blinded the police. By the time of the bugged car trip, the entrances to their apartments had been under video surveillance for some time, the hydrogen peroxide in the garage had been replaced with ordinary water, and the third member of the trio, Daniel Schneider, was also under police observation. In fact, the three men had become part of a cat-and-mouse game between the state and its worst enemies, a game that was being followed with great interest in both Berlin and Washington D.C. Both the German chancellor and the US president had been briefed.
It has now been exactly one year since Germany's Federal Prosecutor's Office exposed the trio in a spectacular raid. On Sept. 4, 2007, at 2:30 p.m., a team from Germany's elite GSG-9 counterterrorism police unit broke down the door of a vacation home in the Sauerland region in western Germany. In the kitchen, the investigators found two stainless steel pots and nine packages of flour, part of the recipe for the "Satan's Mother" bomb. A shopping bag in the living room, wrapped in red tape, contained military detonators, and an opened Casio watch, probably intended as a timer, was lying on a table. A canister of hydrogen peroxide was found under a white caftan in a closet, and a pungent odor was coming from the bathroom. The would-be bomb-builders had already started cooking up a test batch. (Ver artigo completo na revista Der Spiegel).
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,576332,00.html
JPTF 2008/09/04
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