The Daily Star - Lebanese among 2 arrested in German ‘terror plot’ - September 09, 2011

BERLIN: Berlin authorities said they arrested two men Thursday on suspicion of acquiring chemicals for a possible bombing, ahead of the Sept. 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 neighborhood 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 Sept. 11 anniversary or the Sept. 22-25 visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Germany, which will start in Berlin.
A spokeswoman 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.”
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 suspects regularly attended the mosque in Wedding and occasionally spent the night there, the newspaper said, adding that the probe began when the firms where the chemicals were ordered reported the suspicious purchases to police.
Authorities declined to confirm this.
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 paper.
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 chairman Bernhard Witthaut 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.
A 21-year-old Kosovan went on trial last week for killing two U.S. airmen who were heading to Afghanistan from the western city of Frankfurt in March, in what has been called the first jihadist attack on German soil.
In 2007 police thwarted a major plot to attack U.S. soldiers and civilians in Germany.
In 2006, Islamic militants placed suitcases with homemade bombs on two regional trains at Cologne’s main station. They failed to detonate, averting an almost certain bloodbath.
And three of the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide hijackers including Mohammed Atta had lived in Hamburg.