The authorities beefed up security measures in and around Jewish and Israeli installations in West Germany over the weekend.
They reacted swiftly to urgent requests from Jewish community leaders, following the disclosure Thursday of a series of Arab bomb plots against Jewish and Israeli targets.
A 21-year-old Lebanese physics student was arrested June 23 in Munich, on suspicion of planning the attacks.
They were said to be directed against American, Jewish and Israeli premises, including the Jewish community center in Munich, the El Al Israel Airlines office in Frankfurt and an unspecified target in Darmstadt, a city south of Frankfurt.
The student, not identified, reportedly has been cooperating with the authorities. The police said they found detailed plans in his Darmstadt apartment.
The youth apparently came under suspicion after the authorities intercepted a coded letter sent to an address in Beirut.
It took months to break the Arabic code and to trace the letter-writer. The letter asked for explosives and other lethal equipment.
The suspect reportedly received orders from Lebanon and acted out of religious and political motives.
According to news reports here, the bomb plots were uncovered at least partly as a result of intelligence Israeli officials provided their West German colleagues.
West German security forces have been in an almost constant state of alert for the past month because of threats to attack Frankfurt’s airport, the busiest in Europe, and other facilities.
The threats are attributed to Arab groups seeking the release of Mohammed Hamadei, a Lebanese sentenced to life imprisonment in May for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner and the murder of one of its passengers.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
