Security has been stepped up at a Nato airbase in Germany due to intelligence indicating a “potential threat”, the alliance said.
All staff not essential to missions have been sent home from Geilenkirchen air base, near the border with the Netherlands.
The site hosts the Airborne Warning and Control System, or Awacs, fleet, which function as Nato’s “eyes in the sky”, providing surveillance for missions and operations.
A post on the Nato Awacs fleet's account on X late on Thursday said “we raised the security level” but did not elaborate on the nature of the potential threat.
“Operations continue as planned,” it added.
The threat level has been raised to Charlie, which is defined as “an incident has occurred or intelligence has been received indicating that some form of terrorist action against Nato organisations or personnel is highly likely”.
Police confirmed a deployment on Thursday night but gave no details, and offered no information on Friday morning.
Last week, a major German air force base near Cologne was locked down for several hours amid fears that its water supply might have been tampered with.
An investigation found no evidence of such sabotage. There were also reports of suspicious observations at Geilenkirchen and a person was briefly detained for questioning near the base, news agency dpa reported at the time, but there turned out to be nothing untoward.
A spokeswoman for Geilenkirchen on Friday said the current incident was not connected.
Nato through the years – in pictures
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British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin signs the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington on April 4, 1949. All photos: Getty -
The North Atlantic Treaty showing the signatures of the foreign secretaries and ambassadors of the original signing nations - Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and the US -
A meeting of the North Atlantic Council deputies in 1951 in London, attended by Gen Dwight D Eisenhower, centre -
Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, Secretary General of Nato, with the newly adopted Nato emblem in 1952 -
Belgian Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak holds a press conference in Paris after taking over from Hastings Ismay as Nato chief in 1956 -
The opening speech at the Nato summit in Paris in 1957 -
Some of the Nato vessels gathered for Exercise Medflex Invicta in Malta in 1961 -
A McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II fighter-bomber of the Royal Navy is launched from HMS Ark Royal during a Nato exercise in 1972 -
German Nato troops on manoeuvres in 1980 -
Lord Carrington, the new Secretary General of Nato, sits behind his desk in Brussels, Belgium, in 1984 -
A US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle refuels in the skies over Macedonia in 1999, as it flies missions in support of Nato Operation Allied Force -
Frigates, part of the Nato permanent fleet based in the Mediterranean Sea, enter the port of Piraeus, Greece, in 2003 -
US President George W Bush, US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, ambassador R Nicholas Burns and US Secretary of State Colin Powell attend the Nato summit in 2004 in Istanbul, Turkey -
Members of the military attend a commemoration for Nato soldiers during the 2009 summit in Kehl, Germany -
A protester throws a stone during clashes at the Nato summit in 2009 in Strasbourg, France -
A Polish soldier sits in a tank as a Nato flag flies behind during military exercises in Zagan, Poland, in 2015 -
Guests depart after attending the opening ceremony at the 2018 Nato summit in Brussels -
Nato leaders listen to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson while attending the summit in 2019 in Watford, England -
Soldiers from the Royal Welsh Battlegroup take part in manoeuvres during a Nato exercise on the Estonian-Latvian border in 2022 in Voru, Estonia -
Secretary General of Nato Jens Stoltenberg meets troops at the Tapa Army Base in 2022 in Tallinn, Estonia -
Polish soldiers hold a Nato flag in 2022 at a training ground in Orzysz, Poland -
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Mr Stoltenberg attend a joint press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, in April 2023
Yet it comes at a time of jitters about the potential vulnerability of infrastructure to attempted Russian sabotage.
On Thursday, prosecutors in Flensburg, in Germany's far north, said they were investigating suspicions of espionage for the purpose of sabotage, without elaborating on who might be behind it.
German media reported that drones had been spotted over a chemical park in Brunsbuettel, near the North Sea coast.
Germany, a key ally of Kyiv, has been on high alert for sabotage and attacks on military facilities since Moscow began its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
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.
In June, Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said the western military alliance saw a pattern evolving and that recent attacks were a result of Russian intelligence becoming more active.
Several incidents on Nato territory have been treated as suspicious by analysts in recent years, among them the severing of a vital undersea cable connecting Svalbard to mainland Norway in 2022.
