Well-Dressed and Ready to Kill; Face of Terror in Suit and Tie
Al Qaeda threatens to attack Germany following next week's elections.
Sept. 21, 2009— -- Dressed in a black suit, white shirt and blue tie, a 32-year old German citizen-turned-terrorist says al Qaeda cells in Germany are poised to attack if next week's German election outcome is not to the terrorist group's liking, according to a new video released by al Qaeda on Friday.
Appearing in front of red curtains, Bekkay Harrach delivers the message to his former countrymen in clear and strident language.
"If the German people choose war, then they have delivered their own sentence," he says in the video.
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Harrach, with his shoulder-length black curly hair, looks more like an elegant European playboy than a terrorist. In previous videos, Harrach had worn a black robe that covered his face.
Experts say they fear a person like Harrach with northern European features can more easily slip under the radar of counter-terrorism and law enforcement agents and the Transportation Security Administration in the United States.
"The overt traditional garb and long beard is going to raise a red flag. They are adapting to us reacting, investigating, and prosecuting," said Brad Garrett, former FBI who was involved with terrorism-related investigations for years and is now an ABC News consultant.
"Al Qaeda is becoming more criminally sophisticated and they are recruting more non-Arabs," said Garrett.
Garrett added that new recruits who are German citizens can travel to the United States without a visa or any advance notice, if they are careful about keeping their connection to al Qaeda off of law enforcement's radar.
In the video, Harrach warns German Muslims to avoid public places and avoid any activity that is not absolutely necessary for the two weeks following the election, if a party in favor of continuing the German presence in Afghanistan is elected.
"Keep your children close to you," he says to Muslims in Germany.
During the 26-minute-long video, Harrach chastises German Chancellor Angela Merkel for sending troops to Afghanistan, and says she was wrong not to take al Qaeda seriously.
This is the third video that Harrach has produced, according to the German publication "Der Spiegel." The magazine also said that Harrach has travelled to the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan and has been intimately involved in planning recent major attacks by al Qaeda.
Harrach, who was born in Morocco and raised in Bonn, Germany, traveled to the West Bank in 2003, where he was wounded by Israeli soldiers in Hebron. In 2004 he went to Iraq, according to German media reports.
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