Germany foils plot to assassinate Allawi

Three Iraqis, arrested in Germany today, were plotting to assassinate Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi during his Berlin visit, prosecutors said.

The terror suspects were held in coordinated raids while Allawi was in the capital.

Investigators who had the three suspects under surveillance noticed an increase in activity, phone calls and suspicious movements by one of the suspects before Allawi’s visit that amounted to “evidence of plans of an attack”, chief federal prosecutor Kay Nehm said.

All three were members of the al-Qaida linked terrorist group Ansar al-Islam, Nehm said.

Police raided nine buildings in three states, including Berlin, searching for evidence on the structure of the terrorist group and any hints of “concrete terrorist activities”, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office said.

Word of the arrests came as Allawi met Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, part of a short visit in which the Iraqi premier plans to press Germany for more reconstruction help.

The early-morning raids were carried out by federal prosecutors and state police from Berlin, Baden-Wuerttemberg and Bavaria. Buildings in Berlin, Stuttgart and Augsburg were searched, prosecutors said.

The suspects are alleged to be members of Ansar al-Islam, a militant group suspected of carrying out suicide attacks in Iraq.

Last December, police apprehended a 30-year-old Iraqi in Munich on suspicion he had been organising fund-raising and recruitment for the terror group since the end of 2002.

Authorities are pursuing charges that he supporting a foreign terrorist organisation. Prosecutors allege he helped smuggle Iraqis into Germany and organised trips to Iraq for possible suicide bombing missions against US troops.

German authorities have said that Ansar al-Islam has about 100 supporters in Germany, and US authorities have linked the group to al-Qaida.

Allawi arrived in Berlin last night and was scheduled to fly to Moscow tonight.