2 arrested in Berlin over IS attack plot
Print Edition
GERMAN police yesterday arrested two Algerians suspected of links to the Islamic State group after raids targeted several sites, including refugee shelters where some of the suspects lived.
They and two other Algerians “from the jihadist scene are under investigation over suspicions that they are planning a serious act threatening the security of the state,” Berlin police said.
The men were suspected of planning a possible strike against the German capital, a spokesman for prosecutors told reporters, but he did not confirm media reports that the Alexanderplatz transport and shopping hub was the target.
The alleged involvement of Algerians in an IS plot and the link to refugee shelters is expected to add fuel to a raging debate over the 1.1 million asylum seekers that Germany took in last year.
North African migrants have already been in the spotlight after they were blamed for a rash of sexual assaults during New Year festivities in Cologne.
But the latest arrests risk compounding fears that jihadists are taking advantage of the massive influx of asylum seekers to slip into Europe undetected.
The operation came as a huge police deployment was underway in Cologne to avoid a repeat of the New Year’s Eve attacks during weeklong carnival festivities which began yesterday.
One of the two men captured is wanted by Algerian authorities for his links to IS, police said, adding that “investigations show that he has been trained militarily in Syria.”
The suspect had arrived in Germany last autumn, and was registered as an asylum seeker, according to national news agency DPA.
A woman detained in the course of the raids is the suspect’s wife, police said.
The second Algerian man was arrested for having falsified identity documents.
Police officers tracked down two other suspects but did not arrest them.
Some 450 officers took part in the operation in Berlin and the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony, and seized computers and cellphones.
Among the locations searched were “the refugee shelters where the suspects lived,” Berlin police spokesman Stefan Redlich told news channel N24.
He also told a news conference that two of the four suspects had sought to pass themselves off as Syrians.
No weapons were found in the operation, Redlich said, but Bild said investigators were searching for explosives.
Berlin’s home affairs chief Frank Henkel said the “level of threat posed by Islamist militants remains high.”
“We have every reason to remain vigilant and careful,” he said.
“Therefore there should be a systematic crackdown on the Islamist scene, especially if there are likely links to IS.”
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