( dpa ) - Berlin police placed concrete blocks around the approaches to the city's Jewish Museum Tuesday in response to an increased threat of terrorist attack emanating from Lebanon.
A crane placed more than a dozen metre-high blocks on the pavement in front of the building, designed by renowned US architect Daniel Liebeskind and opened to the public in 2001.
Over the weekend it was reported that the German security authorities had issued a warning on January 11 to the Jewish community of an increased threat of terrorist attack.
Stefan Kramer, general secretary of the Central Council of German Jews, said that increased precautions were being taken. The threat was to synagogues and Jewish schools across the country, not just in Berlin, as initially reported, Kramer said.
Kramer referred to information from Lebanon and a possible link to the current trial in Dusseldorf of a Lebanese man, Youssef al-Hajj Dib, 23, on charges of attempting to blow up German trains with suitcase bombs in July 2006.
The weekly Focus newsmagazine reported that four Arab men had been arrested while acting suspiciously near Jewish insitutions in Berlin, although three of them had subsequently been released, while the fourth was being held for unrelated offences.
It also reported details of a possible bomb plot involving a stolen army minibus and a quantity of explosives found by police.
There are estimated to be some 200,000 Jews in Germany, half of whom belong to a synagogue or similar institution.