NATO base in Germany briefly raises security level after 'potential threat'

A crew member checks a NATO Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, which participates in the German-led multinational exercise Air Defender 23, at the military base of Geilenkirchen, western Germany, on June 20, 2023. German police said on August 23, 2024. [AFP]

NATO said Friday it had lowered its security level at an airbase in western Germany after briefly raising it over an unspecified "potential threat".

The scare follows a trespassing attempt at the same site last week, which came around the same time as a separate case of suspected sabotage at a German military base.

"We raised the security level at NATO Airbase Geilenkirchen based on intelligence information indicating potential threat," the base said in a post on social media platform X late Thursday, with "non-mission essential staff... sent home as a precautionary measure".

On Friday afternoon it said that the security level "has returned to Bravo+," which it had been at before.

"The temporary rise... was a precautionary measure to minimise potential risk to our organisation and personnel," the base said, adding that "all scheduled operations are proceeding as planned".

A spokesman for police in Cologne, close to the NATO base, told AFP on Friday that there was an "ongoing police deployment" at the site but said "the police cannot give further details due to investigations which are currently ongoing".

The Geilenkirchen base, which is close to the Dutch border, houses AWACS reconnaissance aircraft and has been in use by NATO since 1980.

In last week's suspected trespassing incident, NATO said an individual attempted to enter the base but was stopped and sent away.

In the second case, the Bundeswehr base in Cologne-Wahn was locked down after a hole was discovered in a fence near drinking water storage facilities.

Test results later showed that the tap water was not contaminated, according to the German army.

No link between those two incidents has been established.

Germany -- a key ally of Kyiv -- has been on high alert for sabotage and attacks on military facilities.

In April, investigators arrested two German-Russian men on suspicion of spying for Russia and planning attacks in Germany -- including on US army facilities -- to undermine military support for Ukraine.