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

BERLIN -- Security at a NATO air base in western Germany has been raised because of intelligence information pointing to a “potential threat,” and all staff not essential to missions have been sent home as a precaution, NATO said.

The Geilenkirchen air base, near the border with the Netherlands, is where the alliance's Airborne Warning and Control System, or AWACS, aircraft are based.

A post on the NATO AWACS fleet's account on social media network X late Thursday night announcing that “we raised the security level" did not elaborate on the nature of the potential threat. It said that “operations continue as planned.”

The Geilenkirchen base said Friday that it had nothing to add to the statement and “the situation at the moment is unchanged.”

German news agency dpa said a reporter saw police cars on the grounds of the air base. Police confirmed a deployment Thursday night but gave no details, and offered no information on Friday morning.

Last week, a major German air force based near Cologne was locked down for several hours amid fears that its water supply might have been tampered with. An investigation found no evidence of such sabotage. There were also reports of suspicious observations at Geilenkirchen and a person was briefly detained for questioning near the base, dpa reported at the time, but there turned out to be nothing untoward.

The incidents come at a time of jitters about the possible vulnerability of infrastructure to attempted Russian sabotage.

On Thursday, prosecutors in Flensburg, in Germany's far north, said they were investigating suspicions of espionage for the purpose of sabotage, without elaborating on who might be behind it. German media reported that drones had been spotted over a chemical park in Brunsbuettel, on the North Sea coast.