Security is stepped up at a NATO air base in Germany due to a ‘potential threat’

Safety at a NATO air base in western Germany has been raised due to intelligence data pointing to a “potential menace,” and all workers not important to missions have been despatched house as a precaution, NATO stated.

The Geilenkirchen air base, close to the border with the Netherlands, is the place the alliance’s Airborne Warning and Management System, or AWACS, plane are based mostly.

A put up on the NATO AWACS fleet’s account on social media community X late Thursday evening saying that “we raised the safety stage” didn’t elaborate on the character of the potential menace. It stated that “operations proceed as deliberate.”

The Geilenkirchen base stated Friday that it had nothing so as to add to the assertion and “the scenario in the meanwhile is unchanged.”

German information company dpa stated a reporter noticed police vehicles on the grounds of the air base. Police confirmed a deployment Thursday evening however gave no particulars, and supplied no data on Friday morning.

Final week, a significant German air drive based mostly close to Cologne was locked down for a number of hours amid fears that its water provide might need been tampered with. An investigation discovered no proof of such sabotage. There have been additionally stories of suspicious observations at Geilenkirchen and an individual was briefly detained for questioning close to the bottom, dpa reported on the time, however there turned out to be nothing untoward.

The incidents come at a time of jitters in regards to the potential vulnerability of infrastructure to tried Russian sabotage.

On Thursday, prosecutors in Flensburg, in Germany’s far north, stated they have been investigating suspicions of espionage for the aim of sabotage, with out elaborating on who is likely to be behind it. German media reported that drones had been noticed over a chemical park in Brunsbuettel, on the North Coastline.