Germany has stepped up security of its parliament following fresh warnings that a group of Pakistan-trained militants are planning to orchestrate a Mumbai-style attack by storming the building to carry out a bloodbath and take a number of hostages.
Police had already cordoned off the area around the reichstag in Berlin and personal control was intensified earlier this week after the authorities received a tip-off that a group of militants are on their way to stage a Mumbai-style attack for the end of this month.
Hundreds of extra police have been pressed into service also to protect other possible targets such as airports, railway stations and places of mass gatherings across the country.
The heightened security for the reichstag comes after the news magazine 'Der Spiegel' reported on Saturday that a group of six Al Qaeda terrorists, who have visited the training camps in the border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan, are planning to storm the building housing the bundestag, the lower house, early in 2011.
Two of them have already arrived in Berlin six to eight weeks ago and their accomplices, a German, a turk, a north African and an unidentified man are waiting to enter the country.
Their attacks are planned for February or March, the magazine said. The warning about the planned attack on the reichstag came to the Federal Criminal Office (BKA) from a German Islamic militant, who slipped to Pakistan some time ago to receive training in the terrorist camps there and now wants to return to his family.
However, German Interior minister Thomas de Maiziere made his warning about "concrete evidence" for an attack by Islamic terrorists for the end of this month on the basis of a second tip-off received by the BKA from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the magazine said.
The US domestic intelligence service warned that the Shiite militant group "Saif had entered into a pact with al- Qaeda to carry out an attack in Germany and two men despatched by the group are waiting to enter Germany via the United Arab Emirates on November 22 with Schengen visas, Der Spiegel said.
The FBI has identified Mustaq Altaf Bin-Khadri as the mastermind behind the plot and he is assisted in getting the men across to Germany by weapons and narcotics smuggler Dawood Ibrahim, who was also involved in the terrorist attacks in Mumbai two years ago.