German Police Hunt for Terror Plot 'back-up Team'

German police were today searching for around 10 more members of a terror cell suspected of plotting major bomb attacks, after the arrest of three men and the seizure of explosives materials.

Officials have said the three men already in custody - two German converts to Islam and a Turkish national - were planning attacks which could have proved more deadly than those in London or Madrid, with possible targets including US military bases, discos, pubs and Frankfurt's international airport.

August Hanning, a senior interior ministry official who formerly headed Germany's foreign intelligence service (BND), said today that police were now seeking around 10 more people suspected of acting as a back-up team to the alleged plotters.

"This is the network that we are aware of at the moment," he told the ARD TV station, saying that the suspects included Germans and Turks, as well as other nationalities. The terror cell no longer posed a direct security threat, he added.

The three men in custody were arrested after security services swooped on a rented house in Sauerland, 60 miles east of Düsseldorf. The trio had amassed more than 700kg (1,500lbs) of hydrogen peroxide, officials said.

The alleged plot shared some details with recent terrorist attempts foiled in Britain, notably the use of hydrogen peroxide to make the bombs and the targeting of airports and social venues. However, British officials suggested there was no link with any network in the UK.

German officials said an attack appeared imminent and major loss of life had been averted. Jörg Ziercke, the head of Germany's Federal Crime Office, told a news conference that the volume of explosive "would have been enough to cause damage on a greater scale than in London and Madrid". He added that the suspects were motivated by a "deep hatred of US citizens" and were aiming to produce as many victims as possible.

In Washington, a senior US state department official said German investigators had determined Frankfurt International airport and the nearby US Ramstein air base were the primary targets.

The men, named only as Daniel S, Fritz G and Aden Y, were in their 20s and were all said to have attended training camps in Pakistan. In Germany they are accused of setting up a national cell of the Islamic Jihad Union, a shadowy splinter group from an Uzbekistan grouping thought to have become obsolete.

In the months before their capture they had made a living from temporary work or unemployment benefits while spending most of their time planning the attack, the German authorities said.

News of their capture came a day after Danish police arrested eight young Muslims also suspected of preparing a bomb attack. Officials said no immediate link had been established between the two cells. The federal prosecutor's office also declined to comment on whether there was any connection to groups in Britain or elsewhere in Europe, saying investigations were still at an early stage. But some speculated that the suspects might have hoped to stage a reminder attack to coincide with the sixth anniversary of September 11.

"These groups are highly motivated by getting as much media resonance as possible. That means that symbolic acts, like the anniversary, become very important," said Klaus Segbers, an expert on terrorism at the Otto-Suhr-Institut, in Berlin.

The German cell aroused suspicion when members were seen around a US military facility in Hanau, near Frankfurt. Since then a 300-strong force had tracked them day and night in what became Germany's biggest counter-terrorism operation since September 11.

On Tuesday afternoon, when fears grew that they were assembling a bomb, members of an elite anti-terrorist unit stormed the rural holiday house they were renting. Two were arrested immediately but the third fled through a window.

He was caught 300 meters away by police who had cordoned off the area. In the struggle a shot was fired. After the arrests, raids took place across Germany and police seized money and computers.

Fear of possible terrorist attacks has been running high in Germany, not least because it has troops stationed in Afghanistan and on the coast of Lebanon.