Berlin authorities said they arrested two men yesterday on suspicion of acquiring chemicals for a possible bombing, ahead of the September 11, 2001 attacks’ anniversary and a Papal visit this month.
Police took a 24-year-old German of Lebanese origin and a 28-year-old Palestinian from the Gaza Strip into custody and raided their homes as well as a mosque in the working class neighbourhood of Wedding, a spokesman said.
He said authorities had launched the investigation, reportedly codenamed “Rainshower”, several months ago but did not provide further details.
He also declined to comment on a possible link to the September 11 anniversary or the September 22 to 25 visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Germany, which will start in Berlin.
“There are no indications of specific targets of an attack,” said the spokesman, Thomas Neuendorf. “The men were still in the planning process.”
News website Spiegel Online quoted police as saying the suspects did not appear to belong to a known terror organisation or have links to militants abroad.
Authorities say the men had acquired several coolants and an acid normally used in farming with the aim of building an explosive, the daily Berliner Morgenpost reported online.
Mr Neuendorf said the probe began when the firms where the chemicals were ordered reported the suspicious purchases to police and that the men had not yet started building a bomb.
A spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office said it had launched a probe against the men on “suspicion of preparing a major violent crime against the state”.
The suspects regularly attended the mosque in Wedding and occasionally spent the night there, the Morgenpost said.
Officers were out in force at the mosque, where they had closed off the street in front with police tape.
The Tagesspiegel newspaper said on its website that authorities had had the men under round-the-clock surveillance.
“We barely had mobile operations commando forces available for other duties because they were all committed to the terror cell,” an unnamed investigator told the newspaper.
The GdP police union said the arrests underlined the risk factor posed by the Islamic militant scene in Germany.
“Those who think that the situation has returned to normal 10 years after the terrible attacks in the United States and the death of (Al-Qaeda leader) Osama bin Laden have once again been put right,” GdP chief Bernhard Witthaut said. Chancellor Angela Merkel had said on Saturday in her weekly video podcast that the fight against terrorism still had to be won a decade after the September 11 attacks, as she defended Germany’s unpopular deployment in Afghanistan.
“Osama bin Laden is dead, but terrorism has not yet been defeated,” she said.
Germany opposed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq but has around 5,000 troops in Afghanistan under Nato command. Authorities say the Islamist scene is large and dangerous, with about 1,000 members across the country.