Islamic extremists planned to kidnap dozens of Jews in Prague and hold them hostage before murdering them, the Czech Republic's leading newspaper reported today.
The daily Mlada Fronta Dnesquoted unidentified sources close to intelligence agencies as saying the captives would have been held in a Prague synagogue while the captors made broad demands that they knew could not be fulfilled.
When those demands - which were not specified by the sources - were not met, the extremists would blow up the building, killing all who were inside, the paper added.
A man contemplates a wall in Pinkas' Synagogue in central Prague overwritten with the names of the 80,000 Czech Jews who died in the Holocaust.
The paper, which gave other few details, did not say whether any arrests were made and did not specify the identities of the extremists.
On September 23rd the government posted armed guards around dozens of buildings and on the streets in the Czech capital after security services issued a warning that an unspecified attack was imminent.
Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek and government officials have since refused to divulge details of what kind of attack they feared in Prague.
Prague's Old Town is the location for the Jewish Quarter where thousands of tourists - many of them Jews - flock to see centuries-old synagogues and graves. The country's once-flourishing Jewish community was heavily depleted during World War Two.
The Czech Republic has a small military unit in Afghanistan and military police instructors in Iraq.