Germans Foil Terror Plot

(Frankfurt, Germany) Three radical Islamists were arrested under suspicion of plotting bomb attacks at Frankfurt Airport and the U.S. airbase at Ramstein. About 20 policemen were involved in the arrests and, reportedly, shots were fired. Over 300 police officers were involved in the six-month surveillance of the group.

Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung called the terror suspects "an immediate threat."

According to information obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE, the three men were Daniel S. from the state of Saarland and Fritz G. from Neu-Ulm in Bavaria, both of whom are German converts to Islam, as well as Adem Y., who is believed to be from Turkey.

The three, who had apparently founded a terrorist cell, have been under intensive investigation for several months. All three men were considered radical Islamists and had contact with Islamist groups in Germany and Pakistan.

The investigators spontaneously made the arrests on Tuesday afternoon after the men were observed moving chemicals that could be used to make bombs from one storage location to another. Police believe that the men wanted to experiment in the coming days and weeks with the chemicals and possibly start building a bomb. They were, however, far away from making a bomb that could be detonated.

Federal Prosecutor Monika Harms said the terror suspects are members of the Islamic Jihad Union who attended a militant training camp in Pakistan last year. She also said that the men were able to collect massive quantities of hydrogen peroxide, the same material used in the London transport attacks. If turned into bombs, the material could have been used to produce an explosion equal to more than 1,200 pounds of dynamite.

According to Jorg Ziercke, head of Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), the Islamic Jihad Union has ties to al-Qaeda. That's not surprising since they went to a training camp in Pakistan. Note, though, that the cell itself appears to be entirely home-grown on German soil. These guys were radicalized likely through a mosque or school smack dab in the middle of Germany.


[Update]

Rusty connects the dots on the Islamic Jihad Union at The Jawa Report. The group is linked to jihadists in Uzbekistan.