Germany Arrests Three Over 'serious and Massive Bomb Plot'

Three men have been arrested for allegedly plotting "massive bombings" greater than the explosions in Madrid and London, German officials said today.

Monika Harms, the German federal prosecutor, said the three suspected terrorists had trained at camps in Pakistan and obtained some 680kg (1,500lb) of hydrogen peroxide for making explosives.

"We were able to succeed in recognizing and preventing the most serious and massive bombings," she said, declaring it "a good day for security in Germany".

"This would have enabled them to make bombs with more explosive power than the ones used in the London and Madrid bombings," Joerg Ziercke, the head of Germany's federal crime office, said at a joint news conference with Ms Harms.

The Madrid train bombings killed 191 people, and 52 people died in the London attacks.

"This shows that terrorist dangers in our country as well are not abstract but are real," said the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. She said the arrests showed that international cooperation was "of decisive significance in the fight against terrorism".

Citing unnamed security sources in Berlin, the broadcaster Suedwestfunk said Frankfurt airport and a US airbase in Ramstein were among the suspects' targets. However, German officials gave no details on the alleged targets, which were also believed to have included nightclubs and bars popular with Americans in Germany.

The three suspects first came to the attention of authorities because they had been observing a US military facility at the end of 2006, officials said.

All three had undergone training at camps in Pakistan run by the Islamic Jihad Union, and had formed a German cell of the group. The Islamic Jihad Union was described as a Sunni Muslim group based in central Asia that was an offshoot of an extremist group called the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

German media reports said around 20 officers from Germany's elite GSG 9 unit had stormed a holiday flat being used by the three, two of whom were German converts to Islam. The third was believed to be from Turkey.

The website of the German news magazine Der Spiegel said investigators made the arrests yesterday afternoon after the men were observed moving chemicals from one storage place to another.

It is believed that the men wanted to experiment with the chemicals and possibly to start building a bomb. They were, however, some way from making a bomb that could be detonated, Spiegel Online said.

News of the arrests came a day after Danish police arrested eight men suspected of plotting a bomb attack and of having links to al-Qaida. They also occurred less than a week before the sixth anniversary of the September 11 2001 attacks in the US.

Frankfurt airport is one of Europe's busiest airports, with 52 million passengers passing through it each year. The Ramstein base, 80 miles south-west of the airport, is one of America's most important foreign bases and is a hub for US operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Germany, which has forces in Afghanistan, has been on high alert for attacks. It has been on the lookout for any re-emergence of militant Islamist groups since 2001, when Hamburg was used as a base for planning the September 11 attacks.

In April the US embassy in Berlin announced a strengthening of security at diplomatic and military facilities in Germany in response to a perceived increased terrorist threat.

Last year two men of Lebanese origin attempted to detonate crude suitcase bombs on two German trains, according to German authorities. Prosecutors have said the bombs failed to go off because of a technical error.