Germany foils 'massive' bomb plot

Germany foils 'massive' bomb plot

Three men have been arrested in Germany on suspicion of planning a "massive" terrorist attack on US facilities in the country, officials have said.

Federal prosecutor Monika Harms said the three had trained at camps in Pakistan and procured some 700kg (1,500lbs) of chemicals for explosives.

She said the accused had sought to target facilities visited by Americans, such as nightclubs, pubs or airports.

Defence minister Franz Josef Jung said the men had posed "an imminent threat".

Media reports said they were planning attacks against a US military base in Ramstein and Frankfurt airport.

Surveillance effort

Ms Harms said the men planned to use vehicles loaded with the explosives to kill or injure large numbers of people.

The arrests had prevented "massive bomb attacks", she added.

The suspects, all thought to be in their twenties, were suspected members of the German cell of a group she named as Islamic Jihad Union.

Joerg Ziercke, the head of Germany's federal crime office, said the men had a "profound hatred of US citizens".

They had been under surveillance for six months, but the authorities decided to act when it became clear the men were planning to move their huge stores of hydrogen peroxide.

They were arrested on Tuesday afternoon in a raid on an apartment in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Another 40 raids were also carried out on properties across the country.

'Major targets'

Wolfgang Bosbach, an MP with Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, said the planned attacks "would have had considerable consequences" and might have been timed to coincide with the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US.

Frankfurt airport is continental Europe's busiest, and the base at Ramstein in western Germany is a major transport hub for US military operations.

Germany, which has soldiers in Afghanistan but did not send troops to Iraq, has been largely spared terrorist attacks.

However, there have been growing concerns that Islamist militants are operating in the country.

Six years ago, the northern city of Hamburg was thrust into the spotlight after it emerged a cell had used it as a base for planning the 9/11 attacks.

Last summer, two suitcase bombs were planted on commuter trains in several German towns but they failed to explode.

On Monday, two people with suspected links to al-Qaeda were arrested in Denmark on suspicion of planning a bomb attack.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/6979295.stm

Published: 2007/09/05 12:20:43 GMT