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UK link to terrorists planning new 9/11 massacre
Last updated at 10:22am on 06.09.07Islamic terrorists planning a massacre in Germany on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks phoned British contacts as they plotted, it has emerged.
They planned to strike at German airports and US bases exactly six years after hijacked planes ploughed into the World Trade Centre.
The three suspects, two German converts to Islam and a Turk who had undergone military training at Taliban camps in Pakistan, were caught with 750kg of hydrogen peroxide, a chemical easily transformed into explosives.
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One suspect was taken away by helicopter in handcuffs
Another of the suspects is led away in handcuffs. Click to enlarge
Several calls to British numbers are said to been made from mobile telephones linked to two of the men being questioned in Germany. One is said to have been a "known" number.
Prosecutors and police painted a picture of a ruthless cell of Al-Qaeda-linked fanatics, willing to die in suicide attacks with bombs more powerful than those used in the July 7 attacks in London in 2005.
Prosecutors said the attacks were planned at Frankfurt airport, Germany's biggest and busiest, and the Ramstein Airbase - the Pentagon's largest outside of the US.
Confiscated canisters labeled as hydrogen peroxide are displayed during this morning's press conference in Germany
Other US bases, civilian airports, a nightclub and pub were on the terrorists' target list.
Germany's chief prosecutor, Monika Harms, said the plan was to construct massive car bombs and cause "as much loss of life as possible".
"We have stopped what would certainly have been the worst terror attacks in Germany," he added.
The men had been under surveillance for months from agents of the BND, Germany' s MI5, and the elite GSG-9 police commandos who are trained along SAS-lines.
American intelligence officials were also in on the surveillance but played no part in the arrests.
On Tuesday, authorities swooped at a hideout in the village of Oberschledorn in North Rhine-Westphalia where the "bomb factory" was located.
One of the suspects broke out of a bathroom window and bolted into woodland, where he wrestled with a police officer and managed to take his gun.
A shot was fired but no one was hit. The policeman and his colleagues overpowered the suspect. All three suspects were arrested.
Forty other homes and offices across Germany were raided at the same time. As well as the chemical mixtures, police discovered military detonators.
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Frankfurt Airport. Reports suggest the terror plot targeted civilian and military planes at the airport
The US military base at Ramstein was also believed to have been targeted
German defence minister Franz Josef Jung said: "The attacks were planned for the near future. They presented a direct threat to life."
The group had been under surveillance ever since one was spotted spying the US barracks at Hanau on New Year's Eve last year.
Email traffic between them and others abroad led to the authorities' action five days before the anniversary of 9/11.
Der Spiegel, the respected German news magazine, was among media outlets which reported the terrorists were gearing up for attacks on that day.
Last night British anti-terror officers were last night checking for links between the men held in Germany and British-Pakistani terror suspects who may have trained with them.
The terror attack that authorities believe was foiled in Germany may have been timed to coincide with the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York
Officers from Scotland Yard flew to Germany to assist the investigation. They want to examine any possible links with UK terror plots.
The details of the men are also to be shown to Al Qaeda supergrass Mohammad Babar, who trained with Britons at terror camps, by US officials and to extremists in British jails.
Al Qaeda and jihadi bomb makers are known to have taught Britons how to use hydrogen peroxide at camps in Pakistan attended by other Europeans.
It has featured as a key component of al Qaeda-linked bombers at least twice in Britain. It was used by the four July 7 suicide bombers in the bombs that killed 52 on the London transport network.
It was also to have been used two weeks later in the copycat attacks by four more Islamic fundamentalists intent on bringing slaughter to the capital's streets. But the rucksack bombs failed to go off.
The plotters were jailed earlier this year. Germany routinely does not issue the last names of criminal suspects.
A man identified as being the group's leader, Fritz G, 28, is from Ulm in southern Germany, where he is understood to have worked at the city's Islamic Information Centre after converting to Islam.
The other German, Daniel S, 22, is also a Muslim convert and comes from Saarbruecken on the border with France. The third man is a Turk named Adem Y, 29, who lives in Frankfurt.
They were members of a group called Islamic Jihad Union. Spawned in Uzbekistan, it was described by a senior German lawman as a "franchise" of al Qaeda with close ties to Osama Bin Laden's terror corporation.
The men, radicalised over what they saw as the oppression of Muslims worldwide by America and her allies, have apparently been confessing to interrogators.
Reader views (10)
Britain is viewed as a safe haven for terrorists with our human rights laws preventing us from deporting them and our the laws put in place by Labour. Time to change all this I say?
- Brandon Thomas, London, UK
I see Blair has had a lot of impact in his new job as Mid-East peace envoy - do me a favour!
- Dave, Wookey Hole, Somerset
Tal seems to imply that, because many innocent civilians have died in Iraq, it is perfectly acceptable for hundreds of innocent Germans (and no doubt Westerners generally) to be murdered by fanatical Islamic terrorists. It is not acceptable and never will be. I am tired of this pathetic argument! Al-Qaeda and their supporters are murderous scum.
- Anthony, London
I hope the entire Western world is on high alert over the next few days. These people mean business and will it take another atrocity to shake off the complacency?
- Stan, Expat, USA
"You were at threat but we your government saved you" and we take that on trust, what fools we are.
- Daveb, London
Tal, quite a simple difference, although Mr Bush used shock and awe tactic, it was against military targets, whereas the Al Qaeda terror cell don't care who they hurt.
- Ben, London, UK
There is a world of difference Tal.
- Noel, London
Tal - Frank was stating a fact whereas you are airing a view.
- Dan, Manchester
Frank - and the difference with the so-called 'War on Terror' and the mass murder of tens of thousands of innocents for "Shock and Awe" TV effects is what exactly?
- Tal, London, UK
Al Qaeda trying to commit mass murder again? What a surprise.
- Frank, Home Counties, England
