Berlin - Germany's most senior policeman, Joerg Ziercke, softened Thursday his warning against attacks by Islamist terrorists, saying there was no concrete evidence that anyone was currently planning such an attack.

Ziercke, who heads the BKA federal crime bureau, said on ZDF breakfast television, "One must however stress that we are part of a worldwide zone that is in danger."

His remarks, on the seventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington with hijacked airliners, followed a more ominous interpretation of his assessment Thursday by the German newspaper Bild.

Bild had quoted him telling German parliamentarians, "The decision to conduct attacks against Germany has been made at the top level of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups." Germany was in the "immediate spectrum of targets."

On television, Ziercke said he perceived the danger to Germany coming from home-grown terrorists - radical people who have grown up in Germany - and from networks in Germany that were directed from abroad. (dpa)