GERMANY:German prosecutors said yesterday that they had arrested three members of an Islamist cell allegedly planning "massive bomb attacks" against US targets in Germany.
The three men, one Turkish national and two German converts to Islam, had begun buying bomb-making chemicals and equipment and were arrested in a raid on Tuesday afternoon.
"We have succeeded in identifying and preventing the most serious and massive bombings," said chief prosecutor Monica Harms.
Germany's leading federal police officer, Jörg Ziercke, said that the 730kg of hydrogen peroxide, stored in a building in southern Germany, could have theoretically made bombs with more explosive power than the ones used in the London and Madrid bombings. Neither official would confirm claims that Frankfurt airport and the US airbase at Ramstein were the main targets. Ms Harms said that investigators had established that the men were concentrating on buildings and facilities frequented by US personnel in Germany, such as discos and airports.
Interior minister Wolfgang Schäuble said that exact targets were not known, but that the men worked with "intense conspirative energy". Their arrest, he said, came "appropriately early, before a real danger existed".
"These arrests make clear to citizens that they can trust the security services, that they do good work and no one should feel threatened in their daily life," said Mr Schäuble, who has come under sustained political attack for advocating tougher electronic surveillance measures.
"On the other hand, it's clear our country is threatened by international terrorism ... and that we have an increasing problem with home-grown terrorism."
Police began their surveillance operation of the three men - two Germans aged 22 and 28 and a Turk aged 29 - at the end of last year when they "cased out" a US military facility near Frankfurt.
Telephone taps and e-mail monitoring revealed that the three unemployed men had trained at camps in Pakistan run by the Islamic Jihad Union, a Sunni Muslim group with roots in Uzbekistan.
"The al-Qaeda-influenced group set up a German cell in winter of 2006 with the goal of finding recruits here to carry out attacks," said Ms Harms.
She declined to discuss the possible motive of the attacks, but terrorism experts pointed to Germany's continued military engagement in Afghanistan, which the German government agreed yesterday to extend by several more years. "To walk away now would send the wrong signal," said chancellor Angela Merkel.
After watching the men for months, investigators decided to swoop on Tuesday after they became agitated that they were being watched and had discussed closing down the cell.
The raid on the holiday house in Oberschledorn, a tiny village in the western German region of Sauerland, almost ended in a shoot-out. One of the men escaped through a bathroom window, pulled a gun and shot one of the pursuing officers, injuring him lightly. The three were then overpowered and led away.