I want to come back to a story that had quite a bit of media traction in Germany but went virtually unnoticed in the United States. About two weeks ago, I co-hosted a luncheon discussion for visiting Bavarian conservative CSU Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann at the German Marshall Fund here in Washington, DC. During the talk, titled "Confronting Germany’s Immigration and Homeland Security Challenges," Minister Herrmann declared for the first time in public that Bavarian police had foiled a potential Islamist terrorist attack aimed at blowing up the opening match of the 2006 Soccer World Cup in Munich on June 9 of that year.

Specifically, the police engaged in intensive observations of a lone man suspected of being "associated with Islamist extremism" and who was seen acting suspiciously near Munich’s state-of-the art Allianz Arena soccer stadium. However, during the surveillance operation, the suspect suddenly quit Germany, possibly as a result of growing suspicious that he was being watched. Both Interior Minister Herrmann and Waldemar Kindler, the Chief of the Bavarian Police Force who accompanied the minister on his trip to Washington, declined to comment on the suspect’s nationality or current whereabouts. At the time, German authorities decided not to reveal the foiled terrorist plots to the public in order to avoid mass panic and a potential disruption of the games.

During his Washington luncheon address, Herrmann also warned sternly of the growing "danger of attacks [in Germany and elsewhere in Europe] from home-grown networks" and the "formation of parallel societies in large cities and urban areas." "We can't just ignore the fact that there is drastic distance between some Muslims and our system of values.