Terrorist Attacks Averted In Germany: Three Arrests Made

A group of three Islamic terrorists were arrested by German authorities before they were able to carry out plans to bomb the Frankfurt airport and Ramstein AFB along locations frequented by US soldiers stationed or transiting through Germany.

The suspects — two German citizens and a Turkish resident of Germany — were within days of carrying out bombing attacks, said a German security official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Germany’s defense minister, Franz Josef Jung, said on state television, “There was an imminent security threat.”

The arrests were made Tuesday evening at a vacation home in Oberschlendorn, a sleepy village in the state of North Rhine Westphalia, north of Frankfurt. The suspects were mixing chemicals to make explosives, the official said. Police also found a van that they believe was to be used to transport the explosives to Frankfurt and Ramstein, in southwestern Germany.

For months, German officials have warned that the country was under threat of a terrorist attack, in part because of the German military’s deployment in Afghanistan. Officials said that they were particularly worried by reports of Germans taking part in terrorist training camps in Pakistan, near the Afghan border, and then returning to Germany with a goal of carrying out attacks.

“The modus operandi looks pretty much like the one we had warnings about,” the security official said. “There is some evidence that the people arrested took part in training camps.”

The German federal prosecutor said that the arrests were made during a series of police raids across the country. The mayor of Oberschlendorn, Heinrich Nolte, told the German news agency DPA that one of the suspects was shot by police during the raid, which he described as dramatic.

Allah wonders whether these three arrests are connected with the terrorist suspects captured in Denmark earlier this week.

UPDATE:
Here's what the three men were brewing:

The men, two Germans and a Turk, had amassed more than 700 kilogrammes (1,500 pounds) of hydrogen peroxide, the same chemical used by suicide bombers in the 2005 attacks on London's transport system which killed 56 people, Harms said.

The chemicals had been stockpiled in a town in the Black Forest and drums of it had been moved to a rented holiday home recently.

Harms said the men, who were arrested on Tuesday, belonged to an organisation with ties to Al-Qaeda called Islamic Jihad Union, which German authorities have suspected for several months of planning attacks.

The men were aged 22, 28 and 29.

Bob Owens is skeptical that these guys could have pulled off the large scale attacks envisioned based on the quantities of materials recovered. He thinks that they may not have had the technical know-how to mix up the TATP in the proper manner.

I don't know what the technical prowess of these terrorists were, but I haven't seen whether these three were intent upon creating a fuel air explosive such as that attempted in the UK gas car bombing attacks.

UPDATE:
They were picking up government unemployment checks while working on their bomb craft:

The three had no steady work and were drawing unemployment benefits while their main occupation was the plot, officials said. “This group distinguishes itself through its profound hatred of U.S. citizens,” Ziercke said.

Also:

A leading member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union, Wolfgang Bosbach, said the men had probably been planning attacks to coincide with the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.