German intelligence cracks terror group's codes
 

Expatica.com
DPA
December 20, 2004
 

Excerpt:

HAMBURG - German intelligence services have deciphered secret codes used by the Ansar al-Islam organization which is suspected of being behind many of the kidnappings and terror attacks in Iraq, according to German news magazine Focus.

In a report, Focus quotes police and intelligence authorities as saying the arrest of a man believed to have been planning an attack on Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi in Berlin earlier this month has led to the codes being deciphered.

Franz-Hellmutt Schuerholz, president of Baden-Wuertemberg state police department, is quoted as saying: "We have managed to break the structures of the terrorist organization from the outside."

The report said that with the help of the arrested suspect authorities deciphered coded email and mobile telephone messages going right to the top of the organization.

Three men are detained in Germany on grounds of belonging to a terrorist organization following their arrests shortly before Allawi's visit to Germany on December 3.