Merkel says Germany not open to terrorist blackmail

[ECH1969]

Germany will not be intimidated and is not open to terrorist “blackmail”, Chancellor Angela Merkel said in delivering her new government’s statement of policy to the German parliament in Berlin on Wednesday.

A crisis over the abduction of a German aid worker by terrorists in Iraq overshadowed the first major speech by the new chancellor, the first woman to head a German government.

Kai Hirschmann of the Institute for Research into Terrorism in Essen drew a link between the installation of Merkel’s broadly-based government in Berlin and the abduction.

He said the terrorists, whom he linked to Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the self-styled head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, wanted to send a message to the new German government not to cooperate with the United States or with the government in Baghdad.

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I got a pretty good way to handle this. Merkel just has to say that Germany will build a large training base in Germany for Iraqi troops and police if they don't release her now. And, if they still kill her they will have screwed themselves.