German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has warned that an explosives-laden drone discovered at Leipzig/Halle Airport represents a “new threat scenario” for Germany, as counterterrorism investigators examine whether foreign actors could have been involved in the incident that briefly forced the suspension of flights overnight into Wednesday.
Dobrindt described the discovery as an escalation from previous cases involving unauthorized drones near airports. “Drone sightings, drone threats including in a hybrid context, are something we know from the past,” he told reporters during a news briefing Wednesday. “That a drone armed with explosives is at an airport is a new threat scenario.”
It remains unclear at this stage who was behind the incident, although Dobrindt said, “We are dealing with a competition here which may also include foreign powers.”
The interior minister said that the operation did not appear to be the work of amateurs but rather had been professionally planned and executed.
His comments came a day after German authorities said a drone carrying an explosive device was found near the airport’s south runway, where cargo flights operate, forcing the temporary suspension of all flights. A bomb disposal robot was deployed and the detonator attached to the drone was removed. Images of the scene showed the robot close to a Ukrainian cargo plane.
