US air base in Germany gets bomb threat-police

BERLIN, Sep 11 (Reuters) A US air base in western Germany received a bomb threat yesterday evening, prompting a large operation by local police and American forces to secure the site, police said today.

Police in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate said the base had received a call from a man who spoke in German with a Russian or Turkish accent and threatened to attack the air base in Spangdahlem with bombs. He had at least four accomplices.

''After the telephone threat, the American forces informed the police, who moved swiftly with US security forces to protect the air base,'' the police said in a statement.

The threat came a day before the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States and roughly a week after German authorities say they prevented major bomb attacks on US sites in Germany by a domestic cell of Islamist militants.

REUTERS PJ AS1155