Another explosive drone found near Leipzig airport. Merz: Germany is under threat

Full text

Explosive drones found near Leipzig airport show Germany is “under threat,” Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Tuesday after the reported discovery of another device.

“The drone attack in Leipzig, among other things, shows that we are also facing very real threats. Germany has come under increased scrutiny from hybrid attackers,” Merz said in remarks ahead of a cabinet retreat in Neuhardenberg.

German counterterrorism authorities opened an investigation on Aug. 5 after an airport worker found a drone carrying an explosive device on which the detonator apparently failed. Investigators found another drone on Aug. 14 near the Leipzig airport, an important logistics base for NATO, the Süddeutsche Zeitung outlet reported Tuesday .

Merz did not attribute the attack in his remarks Tuesday. “We are working intensively on that together with the security agencies, and we will present our findings and comment on them shortly,” he said.

According to German outlet Bild , Merz told members of his Christian Democratic Union party in a private meeting Monday that the government had “circumstantial evidence pointing to the perpetrators of the crime.”

Earlier this month, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt suggested a state actor was behind the threat. “Many indications pointing in that direction,” he said on Aug. 6 , shortly after the initial discovery.

Merz’s government is seeking to give more leeway to Germany’s intelligence services to stymie threats from adversaries such as Russia. Germany’s security “worsened significantly” since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a German intelligence report said last year .

Spies working for Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the BND, could carry out acts of sabotage and conduct offensive cyber operations under proposed reforms.