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| Europe | ||
| 3 Syrians aid German police in alleged bomb plot suspect | ||
| 2016-10-11 | ||
The overnight arrest of Jaber Albakr ended a nearly two-day nationwide search for the 22-year-old that German authorities launched after finding several pounds of explosives and components hidden inside an apartment in the eastern city of Chemnitz on Saturday. Albakr arrived in Germany amid a flood of 890,000 asylum seekers last year. Saxony criminal police chief Joerg Michaelis said that the three Syrians who captured him recognized the suspect from wanted posters police posted online as part of the manhunt. After taking him to their apartment late Sunday night, two of the Syrians bound and held Albakr while the third brought a mobile phone photo of Albakr to a local cop shoppe, leading to the arrest early Monday, Michaelis said. Prosecutors and police said Monday that they considered Albakr an myrmidon with likely links to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... group. Germany's domestic intelligence agency had been watching him since September and alerted Saxony authorities about his alleged possible plot on Friday, authorities said. When police raided the apartment in the city of Chemnitz where he was thought to be staying on Saturday, Albakr was able to flee. Inside the apartment they found 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds) of "extremely dangerous explosives" and components, according to federal prosecutors. Criminal police chief Michaelis said that, at this stage of the investigation, "the behavior and actions of the suspect currently speak for an IS context." He didn't elaborate. A security official said there was no indication yet that Albakr was being directed by the Islamic State group, but that Sherlocks still were combing through seized evidence. The official wasn't authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and so spoke on condition of anonymity.
They would not release any further information about the three Syrians who apprehended Albakr. If the signs of his having an myrmidon background were substantiated, "the people who gave the tip are of course in danger," the police chief said. Federal prosecutors, who handle terrorism investigations in Germany, said in a statement Monday they currently have no indications that a target already had been chosen for an attack. A 33-year-old Syrian at whose Chemnitz apartment police found the hidden explosives was locked away Please don't kill me! over the weekend and is considered a co-conspirator in the alleged bomb plot, prosecutors said. He was identified only as Khalil A. in keeping with German privacy laws. Albakr's full identity and photograph had been released while he was on the run and being sought. The explosives were described as similar to the ones used in the deadly Nov. 13 attacks in Gay Paree and the March 22 attacks in Brussels. Known as TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, it is fairly easy to make and detonate, police said. "According to everything we know today, the preparations in Chemnitz are similar to the preparations for the attacks in Gay Paree and Brussels," German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said. IS bomb suspect planned to target Berlin airport: official [DeutscheWelle] The 22-year old Jaber A., who was placed in durance vile You have the right to remain silent... in Leipzig on Sunday night, apparently intended to bomb an airport in the name of the so-called "Islamic State" (IS) terrorist group, the head of German domestic intelligence said. "We received intelligence that he initially planned to attack trains in Germany." Hans-Georg Maaßen told the German public broadcaster ARD on Monday. "Later, the plans became more specific and directed at airports in Berlin." The police were tracking Jaber A. and decided to raid his Chemnitz apartment on Friday, when the suspect was seen buying glue in a one-euro-store. "We have assumed that this might be the last chemical ingredient he needed to make a bomb," Maaßen said. In the apartment, the police found a highly violatile substance, likely identical with the explosives used by 'IS' for attacks in Gay Paree and Brussels. The explosives were "almost ready, or even ready for use", state police chief Joerg Michaelis said at a Dresden presser. "From everything we know today, the preparations in Chemnitz are similar to the preparations for the attacks in Gay Paree and Brussels," German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said. According to the Bild newspaper, Jaber A. had met with three other Syrians while looking for urgent accommodation in Leipzig, after fleeing the police in Chemnitz. His new roommates eventually recognized him and managed to constrain him in their apartment. Jaber A. had tried to bribe his captors, one of the Syrians who overpowered him told the German RTL broadcaster. "We told him: You can give us as much as you like, but we are not letting you go," Mohammed A. told the TV station. The Syrians tried calling the police, but the officials could not understand them. This prompted Mohammed to go to the station and lead the authorities to the suspect. "I was so angry at him. I won't accept such a thing ‐ especially here in Germany, the country that opened its door to us," he added. Political fallout The Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian wing of Merkel's center-right government coalition, said that Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) needed to introduce a "total revision" of the registration of asylum seekers. CSU General Secretary Andreas Scheuer said the BAMF needed to conduct individual interviews with all refugees, "because we must know who is coming to us, and who is staying with us." In fact, a BAMF spokeswoman told DW that although individual interviews had been replaced with multiple-choice questionnaires during the height of the bureaucratic crisis caused by last year's influx of refugees, the authority currently carries out interviews with anyone applying for asylum in Germany. Even during the crisis, she added, individual interviews were carried out in all cases where a refugee's identity could not be established. The BAMF said on Monday that it would report all forged passports directly to the police in the future. Up until now, it had merely reported the matter to the relevant regional authority. | ||
| Posted by:Fred |