Firebomb Found on U.S. Troop Train in Germany

Authorities today discovered an incendiary device aboard a U.S. Army troop train and removed it before it could go off, West German police reported today.

A police spokesman said the incendiary device and textiles soaked in a flammable liquid were found early today in two sleeping cars of the U.S. military train that carries soldiers and supplies to and from West Berlin. The train travels 110 miles inside East Germany on the Berlin run.

The arson attempt was discovered in a control inspection at 6:30 a.m. at Frankfurt’s East Station.

The incendiary device designed to ignite the textiles did not go off because of a defect, the spokesman said.

The train was last in operation on Aug. 5, a spokesman for the Army transportation department said.

The spokesman said it is not known whether the materials were hidden aboard the train before it left West Berlin or after it arrived in Frankfurt.

The device was discovered after a routine check showed that the doors of the train had been tampered with, the spokesman said.

The incident underlined a warning by Heinrich Boge, the head of the West German Federal Criminal office, that he expected more attacks like the car bombing last Thursday of the U.S. Air Force’s Rhein-Main Air Base outside Frankfurt. Two Americans were killed and 20 other people were injured in that incident.

Police said members of the Red Army Faction, which took responsibility for the attack on the base, are thought to have hide-outs in the Frankfurt area and may be responsible for the firebomb found on the Army train.

Police are seeking 13 members of the left-wing urban guerrilla group suspected in the air base bombing.

Direct Action, a French extremist group, joined the Red Army Faction in claiming responsibility for the bombing.