Police in central Germany arrested and detained two Islamic extremists on Thursday over suspected plan to launch an attack.
“The men, a 27-year-old Algerian and a 23-year-old Nigerian, whose names were not released, were detained during early morning searches in and near Goettingen. Both men live in the city and have long been part of the Salafist scene there,” the police said.
Goettingen Police Chief, Uwe Luehrig, told the Associated Press (AP) that 12 properties were searched in the operation, as information about a possible attack had been flying in recent days, to an extent that officials decided to take quick action.
According to senior Goettingen police official, Volker Warnecke, investigators found two weapons, one of them a firearm which required no permit, but had been altered so that it could fire live ammunition.
“They also found ammunition, flags of the Islamic State group and a machete,” he added.
Warnecke said investigators had been looking into the local radical scene for several months, and had determined last weekend that the suspects might carry out an attack.
Officials, it was gathered, could not yet say how concrete and advanced their plans were, what exactly they planned to do or what and where their target might have been.
“The suspects are not asylum-seekers and had worked sporadically,” he said.
Germany was shaken last year by three attacks claimed by IS, including the December 19 attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, in which 12 people were killed.
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