German mosque used by September 11 militants closed

Monday, August 9, 2010

German authorities have closed a mosque in Hamburg that 9/11 plotters used for meetings, because authorities fear that it is being used again by Islamic extremists. The Taiba mosque, formerly known as the al-Quds mosque, was raided, closed and the association that runs it was also banned. Police officers confiscated computers and other material.

"We have closed the mosque because it was a recruiting and meeting point for Islamic radicals who wanted to participate in so-called jihad or holy war," Frank Reschreiter, a spokesman for Hamburg's state interior ministry, said. The spokesman also said that this was the first time the mosque had been shuttered and that for "quite a long time" it had been closely examined and watched by intelligence officers.

A May report by the Interior Ministry also said that the mosque "remains the central attraction for the Jihadist scene", and a 2009 Hamburg intellegence report stated that many people involved with the Taiba mosque had been getting training by radical Islamic groups, including a group of 11 people who traveled to military training camps at Uzbekistan in March of last year. Their militant group had been formed at the mosque, and the report stated that "a very important factor for the radicalization of the group members was certainly their joint visits to the mosque."

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!

Sources

Lisa Flam. "German Mosque Where 9/11 Plotters Met Is Closed" — AOL News, August 9, 2010

Associated Press. "German mosque used by Sept. 11 attackers shut down" — USA Today, August 9, 2010

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License