Attack plotted against German minister in Afghanistan
Afp, BERLIN
German authorities learned of a plot to attack Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung when he visited Afghanistan earlier this month, the Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported. Jung visited German troops in northern Afghanistan on June 6 but the trip was not officially announced for security reasons. The German intelligence services warned of the plot just before the minister landed near Kabul, Bild said, citing the defence ministry and sources close to the intelligence community. "The tip-off about a planned attack was very clear," the defence ministry is quoted as telling the newspaper. As a result, the German army changed Jung's travel plans. Germany has around 3,000 troops in Afghanistan serving under Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), most of them in the relatively calm north of the country. On May 19, a suicide bomb killed three German soldiers and six civilians in a crowded market in the town of Kunduz, 300 kilometres (190 miles) north of Kabul, in Germany's biggest loss in Afghanistan since 2003.
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