Gruppen som kaller seg Hekla hevder å stå bak 17 brannbomber på jerbaneskinner bare denne uken. Tyske myndigheter frykter at de står overfor ny venstreterror.

Det er en viss uenighet om hvor alvorlig man skal tolke angrepene. Noen sammenligner med RAF, som også begynte med pyromani, andre mener det er overdrevent.

A conversation with Rainer Wendt these days is enough to make anybody nervous. Wendt is the head of the German Police Union, one of two police unions in the country. And he says that the recent series of attacks on German rail facilities in and near Berlin this week has convinced him that Germany is seeing the beginnings of a new wave of left-wing extremist violence.

He speaks of a «renaissance of the Red Army Faction,» the terror group which perpetrated dozens of killings in Germany over three decades starting in the early 1970s. We are witnessing the «beginnings of leftist terrorism,» he says.
He isn’t alone in his assessment. Hans-Werner Wargel, head of the office for the protection of the constitution in Lower Saxony, spoke of «parallels to the ‘Revolutionary Cells’ which were active into the 1990s» in comments to the daily Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung. The group he mentioned was responsible for several arson attacks over the course of two decades and was listed as a terror group by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer has also spoken of «criminal terrorist attacks» with Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich expressing concern over «increasing left-wing extremism.»

The hyperbole is understandable. Since Monday, police and train officials have discovered 17 incendiary devices planted next to train tracks and near signalling equipment in Berlin and in the surrounding area. Two of them have gone off. Though no injuries have yet been reported, the discoveries have resulted in significant train delays and several cancellations.

Gruppen Hekla sier brannbombene er en protest mot tyske soldater i Afghanistan, som de krever trukket ut. De forlanger også at den amerikanske journalisten Bradley Manning trekkes ut. Han sitter i fengsel mistenkt for å ha lekket dokumenter til Wikileaks.

A group calling itself Hekla released an online statement earlier this week claiming responsibility for the firebombs and condemning Germany’s involvement in Afghanistan. It also demanded the release of the US soldier Bradley Manning, who stands accused of leaking US diplomatic dispatches and other sensitive documents to the whistle-blowing platform WikiLeaks.

Now, in response to the increasing terror accusations, the group has released a second statement, denying that it is involved in terrorism. The incendiary devices never posed a danger to people, says the statement, posted on a leftist website on Thursday. The aim was merely to «disrupt the signal and data communication.»

Debate over ‘Leftist Terrorism’ Erupts in Germany