Berlin police swoop on terror suspects

8 Sep 2011, 11:41 pm   -   Source: AAP
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Berlin police say the arrests of two men on suspicion of acquiring chemicals for a possible terrorist attack follow a two-month surveillance operation.

Police have arrested two men on suspicion of acquiring chemicals for a possible terrorist attack.

Berlin police took a 24-year-old German of Lebanese origin and a 28-year-old Palestinian from the Gaza Strip into custody on Thursday and raided their homes, as well as a mosque in the working-class neighbourhood of Wedding.

The men were suspected of working together to plan "a violent criminal act" and police had watched them for several months, Berlin police spokesman Thomas Neuendorf said.

Authorities say they had acquired several coolants and an acid normally used in farming with the aim of building an explosive, the daily Berliner Morgenpost reported online.

"The men allegedly ordered chemicals that would have enabled them to make a bomb," Germany's DPA news agency quoted a police spokesman as saying.

The suspects regularly attended the mosque in Wedding and occasionally spent the night there, the newspaper said, adding that the probe began when the companies where the chemicals were ordered reported the suspicious purchases to police.

Authorities declined to confirm this.

The Islamic centre that was searched is located in the heavily immigrant Wedding neighbourhood.

About 10 police vans were seen around a building during the search.

A sign on the building read Ar-Rahman Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre for Religious Enlightenment.

"They are searching for chemical substances that can be used to make an explosive device," Neuendorf said.

According to police, the mosque and its leadership were not being investigated, DPA reported.

The mass-circulation Bild daily quoted Berlin prosecutor Ralph Knispel as saying that two chemical companies alerted authorities independently of one another that private individuals had ordered a suspiciously large amount of chemicals.

"They could have built a highly explosive device with that," Knispel said.

Police then put the two men under surveillance for about two months before moving to detain them early on Thursday.

The arrests came three days before the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, and followed a weekend statement by the interior minister that threats to Germany remained "real and intensive".

German officials say they have thwarted six attacks since the 2001 assault that killed thousands in the US.

Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, Germany's top security official, told the Passauer Neue Presse agency at the weekend that authorities "work intensively" to prevent attacks.

Police declined to comment on a possible link to the September 11 anniversary or the September 22-25 visit of the Pope to Germany, which will start in Berlin.

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