Three men suspected of planning attacks at Frankfurt airport and a US military base in Ramstein have been arrested in Germany.
The men - two German converts to Islam and a Turkish citizen who prosecutors said shared a "profound hatred of US citizens" - allegedly obtained military-style detonators and enough chemicals to make bombs more powerful than those that killed 191 commuters in Madrid in 2004 and 52 in London in 2005.
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Federal prosecutor Monika Harms told a news conference that the men, two German nationals and one Turk, had obtained enough materials to make a bomb with an explosive power equal to 550-kilogrammes of TNT and that an attack appeared imminent.
"Thanks to the cooperation of federal and local police over several months we were able to discover and pursue the planning and preparation and in the end prevent massive bomb attacks," Ms Harms told a news conference.
She said she could not confirm reports that the accused were targeting the Frankfurt airport and US military base in Ramstein, but said they had been observed scouting out US installations such as discos, pubs, or airports.
Frankfurt International Airport and the nearby US Ramstein Air Base reportedly were the suspects' primary targets.
Prosecutors indicated police defused the danger earlier in the six-month investigation by stealthily substituting a harmless chemical for the raw bomb material amassed by the suspects. They said police moved in yesterday when the alleged plotters seemed ready to try to make bombs.
Coming less than a week before the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the US, it was the second consecutive day that European authorities announced they had thwarted a major attack.
A senior unnamed US State Department official said the threat had been a major reason the US Embassy in Berlin had increased security and issued two warnings in April and May about possible impending terrorist attacks.
Chancellor Angela Merkel called the arrests a "very, very great success."
"This shows that terrorist dangers, in our country as well, are not abstract but are real," she said. "It also shows for me that international cooperation is of decisive significance in the fight against terrorism."
Deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey welcomed the arrests. "We're very pleased that the government of Germany has taken this action," he said. "It represents their strong cooperation with us and their strong commitment to fighting the war on terror."
Casey declined to discuss the potential targets but said "our general understanding was that these individuals were looking at the possibility of attacking a number of locations, including some prominent public sites as well of some of those specifically associated with American interests or the American government."
The suspects, delivered by helicopter, made a first appearance at a closed hearing at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, which ordered them held pending trial.
News of the arrests comes a day after Danish police conducted raids and took into custody eight young Muslims they suspect of plotting a bomb attack and having links to al-Qaeda. German officials could not say whether there was a link to the alleged Danish plot.
Federal police chief Joerg Ziercke said the men had been seized yesterday afternoon at a house they had rented in the Sauerland region of North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany.
Between February and August 2007, officials said, the accused men acquired 12 vats and a hydrogen peroxide solution used in bomb-making.
Germany, which has forces stationed in Afghanistan, has been on high alert for attacks. The country has feared a re-emergence of militant Islamist groups since 2001, when the northern city of Hamburg was used as a base for planning the September 11th attacks.
In April the US embassy in Berlin announced it was boosting security at diplomatic and military facilities in Germany in response to an increased threat of terrorism there.
Last year, two men of Lebanese origin attempted to detonate crude suitcase bombs on two trains in Germany , according to German authorities. Prosecutors have said the bombs failed to go off because of a technical error