10 more terror suspects hunted in Germany

German authorities were today searching for 10 suspected supporters of an Islamic group linked to al-Qaida who are believed to have assisted the three militants arrested earlier this week in their foiled bomb plot.

Officials believed “some 10” further suspects provided support to the two German converts and a Turkish citizen who were arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of plotting attacks on US and other facilities, August Hanning, a top security official, told broadcaster ARD.

“This is the network that we are aware of at the moment,” Hanning said, adding that authorities believe the splintered cell – which included more converted Germans, Turkish and other citizens – no longer posed a direct security threat.

The three arrested suspects had military-style detonators and enough material to make bombs more powerful than those that killed 191 people in Madrid in 2004 and 52 commuters in London two years ago, prosecutors said yesterday.

“We were able to succeed in recognising and preventing the most serious and massive bombings,” German Federal Prosecutor Monika Harms said at a news conference. She declined to name specific targets.

In Washington, a senior US State Department official said German investigators had determined the Frankfurt International Airport and the nearby US Ramstein Air Base were the primary targets of the plot, but that those arrested may have also been considering strikes on other sites, particularly facilities associated with the United States.

Germany’s announcement was the second in two days that a major attack had been foiled in Europe, after Danish authorities arrested eight alleged Islamic militants with links to senior al-Qaida terrorists.

The German raids were launched after an intense, six-month investigation by 300 officers, who followed the suspects so closely that, at one point, police stealthily substituted a harmless alternate for the raw bomb material the suspects had collected, according to prosecutors.

German and US officials have been increasingly on edge after Islamist attacks on German troops in Afghanistan, fearing an attack at home, and security measures had been increased.

Germany’s elite GSG-9 anti-terrorist unit arrested two of the suspects on Tuesday at a holiday home in Oberschledorn, a town of 900 people in central Germany. A third suspect fled through a bathroom window, but was caught about 300 yards away, authorities said.

The suspects were taken before a judge in closed-door sessions yesterday at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, and were ordered to be held pending trial.

Prosecutors said the three – whom they identified only as Fritz Martin G, 28; Adem Y, 28; and Daniel Martin S, 21 – had first come to the attention of law enforcement when one or more of them carried out surveillance of US military facilities in Hanau, near Frankfurt, in late 2006.

Over the course of the next six months, authorities observed them gathering a dozen containers of 35 percent hydrogen peroxide solution, which officials said can easily be combined with other material to make explosives.

Police decided to move in when the suspects began moving some of the containers and acquiring other equipment used to make bombs.

Prosecutors said the three had undergone training at camps in Pakistan run by the Islamic Jihad Union, and had formed a German cell of the al Qaida-influenced group.

They described the Islamic Jihad Union as a Sunni Muslim group based in Central Asia that was an offshoot of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, an extremist group with origins in that country.

“This group distinguishes itself through its profound hatred of US citizens,” Ziercke said.

The arrests were another alarming report following a failed train bombing last year and warnings that Germany’s troop deployment in Afghanistan could make it vulnerable. German and US officials

have warned of the possibility of a terrorist attack.

In July 2006, two gas bombs were placed on German commuter trains but did not explode. Officials said that attack was motivated by anger over cartoons portraying the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper. Several suspects are on trial in Lebanon, and a Lebanese man has been charged in Germany.

Additionally, three of the four suicide pilots involved in the September 11 attacks, once lived and studied in Hamburg.