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German Police Arrest 3 in Terrorist Plot - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/world/europe/06germany.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all HOME PAGE TODAY'S PAPER VIDEO MOST POPULAR TIMES TOPICS Log In Register Now Search All NYTimes.com Europe WORLD U.S. N.Y. / REGION BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY SCIENCE HEALTH SPORTS OPINION ARTS STYLE TRAVEL JOBS REAL ESTATE AUTOS AFRICA AMERICAS ASIA PACIFIC EUROPE MIDDLE EAST Advertise on NYTimes.com German Police Arrest 3 in Terrorist Plot More Articles in World » By MARK LANDLER Published: September 6, 2007 Today's Headlines Daily E-Mail TWITTER This article was reported by Mark Landler, Nicholas Kulish LINKEDIN and Souad Mekhennet, and written by Mr. Landler. SIGN IN TO E-MAIL Sign up for a roundup of the day's top stories, sent every Enlarge This Image FRANKFURT, Sept. 5 — German PRINT authorities said Wednesday that they REPRINTS had stopped a major terrorist attack SHARE against American and German targets in this country, arresting three Islamic militants and seizing a large amount of potentially explosive Uli Deck/European Pressphoto Agency chemicals and military-grade detonators. German police officers escorting one of the suspects arrested in connection 1 of 9 10.7.2012 00:33 German Police Arrest 3 in Terrorist Plot - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/world/europe/06germany.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all with a terrorist plot. More Photos » Those arrested — two German citizens who had converted to Islam and a Turkish resident of Germany — were in the Multimedia advanced stages of plotting bomb attacks that could have been deadlier than those that killed dozens in London and Madrid, the police and security officials said. At least five lesser figures are still being pursued, they said. “They were planning massive attacks,” the German federal prosecutor, Monika Harms, said at a news conference, German Police Arrest 3 in Terrorist Plot outlining an intensive six-month investigation. She said the suspects had amassed hydrogen peroxide, the main Back Story With The chemical in the explosives used in the London suicide bombings of July 2005. Times’s Mark Advertise on NYTimes.com Landler (mp3) For months, Germany has been warning of a likely terrorist attack, and the government has been MOST POPULAR contemplating tightening surveillance and enforcement E-MAILED BLOGGED SEARCHED VIEWED tactics that are now looser than elsewhere in Europe, in 1. Paul Krugman: Mitt’s Gray Areas Timeline: Europe’s part because of Germany’s troubled 20th-century history. 2. Has ‘Organic’ Been Oversized? Moments of Fear 3. Mark Bittman: Got Milk? You Don't Need It Although officials spoke with confidence of the attack’s 4. Genetic Gamble: A New Treatment’s Tantalizing imminence and seriousness, they did not make fully clear Promise Brings Heartbreaking Ups and Downs the basis of their assertions. Europe has been the site of a 5. Well: Relief for Joints Besieged by Arthritis number of devastating terrorist plots, but some have 6. Opinion: Don’t Indulge. Be Happy. turned out later to be less than met the eye when 7. Genetic Gamble : In Treatment for Leukemia, announced. Glimpses of the Future 8. Campaign Stops: The Hollowing Out If the announced details hold up under scrutiny, it means 9. Op-Ed Contributor: Appalachia Turns on Itself that Germany, like Britain, has become a target for 10. Tulelake Journal: At Internment Camp, Exploring sophisticated homegrown terrorism, and the case will fan Choices of the Past 2 of 9 10.7.2012 00:33 German Police Arrest 3 in Terrorist Plot - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/world/europe/06germany.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all the debate over the balance between civil liberties and Go to Complete List » Sept. 4, 2007 public security. Previous German plots have been far smaller, masterminded by foreigners, or focused outside of Danish authorities arrested eight men in the Germany, like the 9/11 attacks, which were hatched in Copenhagen area on Hamburg. suspicion of plotting a bomb attack. Investigators An American intelligence official said that the United described the threat as States helped German authorities track the location of two imminent and said the arrests were a result of an of the German suspects by eavesdropping on their Let the bounce-back begin international investigation cellphone conversations as they moved out of training ALSO IN MOVIES » that had lasted several camps in Pakistan. A teenage transformation like no other months. Six suspects were The body politic released after a brief detention. Some of the Ms. Harms also said that the two German converts had suspects had connections to trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan and that the three “high-ranking members of suspects had about 1,500 pounds of hydrogen peroxide, Al Qaeda,” said Jakob Scharf, director of the which they were preparing to move by van when arrested ADVERTISEMENTS Danish intelligence service. in an out-of-the-way village in western Germany on It's Just the Ticket for Everything Theater Tuesday afternoon. Security authorities in Europe have warned for some years that radical converts could pose a keen risk since they blend in easily to mainstream society. Related The Turkish links in this case also trouble The Lede Blog: A Long Unraveling counterterrorism experts, who note that Germany has Plot in Germany (September 5, generally not had to contend with a radical element in its 2007) large Turkish Muslim minority. An Everyday Substance, Potent When Concentrated (September 6, “This is the first time I’ve seen a Turkish-German 2007) network,” said Guido Steinberg, a researcher at the Enlarge This Image German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. “And the fact that it is connected to a Turkish 3 of 9 10.7.2012 00:33 German Police Arrest 3 in Terrorist Plot - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/world/europe/06germany.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all network in Pakistan is an even bigger problem.” While the suspects were homegrown, the targets the authorities said they intended to attack were symbols of the enduring American presence in Germany. Thomas Kienzle/Associated Press Information that surfaced during the investigation, which Joerg Ziercke, the head of Germany's included monitoring phone calls and tracking suspects’ Federal Crime Office, left, and German federal prosecutor Monika movements, led the authorities to conclude that among the Harms at press conference in Karlsruhe Wednesday with hydrogen targets under consideration were the Ramstein Air Base, a peroxide seized from the suspects. crucial transportation hub for the American military, and More Photos > Frankfurt International Airport. The 12 vats of hydrogen peroxide collected by the suspects, when mixed with other chemicals, could produce a bomb with a force equal to 1,200 pounds of TNT, officials said. “This would have enabled them to make bombs with more explosive power than the ones used in the London and Madrid bombings,” said Jörg Ziercke, head of the German Federal Crime Office. Mr. Ziercke said the men belonged to a terrorist group that the police suspected of having close ties to Al Qaeda, though he did not offer evidence of those links. Counterterrorism experts here expressed wariness, noting that in almost every major attack or suspected plot since The New York Times 9/11, the role of Al Qaeda has been raised but rarely More Photos > substantiated. Enlarge This Image Nevertheless, the German defense minister, Franz Josef 4 of 9 10.7.2012 00:33 German Police Arrest 3 in Terrorist Plot - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/world/europe/06germany.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all Jung, said on state television, “There was an imminent security threat.” And some officials said the attacks could have come within days, noting that the German Parliament will soon take up a politically fraught debate about extending the deployment of German troops in Afghanistan. Next week is also the sixth anniversary of the Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters 9/11 attacks. German special forces police officers escorting a suspect from the German German officials were visibly relieved by the arrests — the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe today. More Photos > fruits of an elaborate investigation involving more than 300 people. On Wednesday, police officers raided 41 Enlarge This Image houses and apartments across Germany, seizing computers and other evidence. But some politicians warned that the danger remained high. “The arrests yesterday are just evidence of how serious the situation here in Germany is,” said Wolfgang Bosbach, a prominent legislator in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party. Wolfgang Ratta/Reuters One of the suspects, left, with German special police officers today. The surveillance was so close that in July, officials said, the More Photos > police managed to swap some of the tanks of hydrogen peroxide the suspects had gathered with tanks of a far lesser concentration. One of the suspects, whom police sources identified as Fritz Gelowicz, a 28-year-old German born in Munich, was detained in 2005 in a raid in a Muslim neighborhood in Bavaria. He was put under surveillance again in December 2006, after he was seen scouting an American military barracks in Hanau, according to court documents. 5 of 9 10.7.2012 00:33 German Police Arrest 3 in Terrorist Plot - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/world/europe/06germany.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all The police are investigating a German-Turkish man, an associate of Mr. Gelowicz’s and also a suspect in the plot, two security officials said. They said he was believed to be in Turkey. Tuesday’s arrests were made at a vacation home in Oberschledorn, a village of 800 tucked into the hills, 75 miles north of Frankfurt.