FRANKFURT, July 18 (Reuters) – Germany is upgrading its security stance to a “high threat level” from a previous “abstract threat level” based on increasing reports and intelligence, the country’s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said in a German newspaper interview published on Saturday.
• “This means that the risk of attacks must be reckoned with at all times in Germany,” he was quoted as telling Welt am Sonntag.
• “Plans for attacks against our country are clearly discernible,” he added.
• He cited risks to German infrastructure, individuals and institutions.
• The Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for more details.
• Germany has seen a number of attacks in recent years.
• In one prominent case, a Saudi doctor was sentenced to life in prison last month for killing six people and injuring hundreds by ramming a rented BMW into crowds at a historic market in the eastern city of Magdeburg days before Christmas in 2024.
• In another episode, a German court last year found a Syrian citizen guilty of an Islamic State-inspired 2024 stabbing attack at a festival in the western city of Solingen in which three people were killed and 10 others injured.
(Reporting by Tom Sims; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)