German police arrest pair in Islamist terror plot

Local media reported police found explosives, material for making bombs, an assault rifle and ammunition at their home near Frankfurt.

|
Michael Probst/AP
German police officers search for evidence in a forest near Oberursel, Germany, Thursday, April 30, 2015.

Police in southern Germany have thwarted a planned Islamist attack after detaining a married couple with suspected links to Salafist militants, the interior minister of the state of Hesse said on Thursday.

"Investigations by the police indicate that we have been able to prevent a terrorist attack," Peter Beuth, the interior minister of Hesse, told reporters. "This incident shows that must all remain very alert."

Beuth did not give details about specific attack targets.

Confirming a report by Die Welt newspaper, he said the couple were detained in Oberursel, near the financial center Frankfurt, and were suspected of links to Salafist Islamist militants.

German police were due to give more details of the operation in a news conference scheduled for 4.30 p.m. (1430 GMT).

Die Welt identified the couple by their first names and initial - Halil and Senay D. The newspaper's website said Halil had links to the Salafist scene in Frankfurt and the al Qaeda network. It did not identify the source for its report.

The newspaper said police found explosives, material for making bombs, an assault rifle and ammunition at their home, though the interior minister did not confirm these details.

Police began surveillance after the couple bought large quantities of chemicals that could be used to make home-made bombs and started using false names, Die Welt said.

Salafists advocate a puritanical form of Islam and Germany's BfV domestic intelligence agency says their numbers are rising, as is the number of potential recruits for Islamic State.

The BfV estimates that 450 people from Germany have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join radical jihadist forces.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to German police arrest pair in Islamist terror plot
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2015/0430/German-police-arrest-pair-in-Islamist-terror-plot
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe