Threats come and threats go. We have seen this many times in our post 9/11 world. Al Qaeda or some affiliated group says that another attack is imminent. So too reports that something called “chatter” is high. You keep in the back of your mind, just in case, but we don’t think much about these things anymore.

But every once in a while, we know that the threat was not idle and that the results can change the world. Threats before 9/11 came and went with nothing, until it didn’t. It goes without saying that that attack changed the US and consequently the world. So too in Spain days before the election in 2004. Al Qaeda attacked the rail system and days later Spain elected a Socialist vowing to pull them out of Iraq.

The US went one way after an attack, Spain the other. How might the next attack change the world? If some reports out of Israel are to be believed, we soon may find out. If so, there is no telling how the world might be transformed.

(IsraelNN.com) Jihadists close to al-Qaeda explicitly warned in new communications that Germany will be the target of the next 9/11-scale terrorist attack. The timing of the strike, they say, will be within the next few weeks.

According to analysts with the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR), a recently intercepted jihadist communication declares that “everyone knows” that the “next strike is very near, a strike that will surprise everyone in its effect, which will be much more shocking than that of 9/11/2001.” The writer of the chilling message notes that this is the Muslim month of Ramadan and that “we pray that it will indeed be in this month.”

After referring to a previous boast by Osama Bin-Laden, that the enemy is afraid and unable to prevent the next attack, the communication says:

“And the Germans, grandchildren of the Nazis, know more than everyone else that they will be the first ones to taste [the nightmare]. It is just a matter of time – that is, days or weeks – and God willing you’ll see things that you’ve never heard of before.”

It should be remembered that Germany has a national election at the end of this month. How might such an attack change the landscape? It also must be remembered that however Germany goes, so goes Europe. It is impossible and terrifying to imagine the consequences of something like this. I pray we never have to find out.

So like the other threats, I put it in the back of my mind and move on. But before I do I choose to share this with you so that if some weeks from now I find myself standing next you at a candlelight vigil saying with all in solidarity “Ich bin ein Deutscher” you will know that the world has changed, again.