Suzanne Staton' blog: Two Men Arrested in German Bomb Plot

By NICHOLAS KULISH

Published: September 8, 2011

BERLIN ? Two men were arrested here Thursday on suspicion of planning a bombing attack, after the police tracked their purchases of bomb-making materials, a Berlin police spokesman said.

The men, a 24-year-old German of Lebanese descent and a 28-year-old from Gaza, had obtained chemicals that could be used to build explosives, according to the spokesman, Martin Otter, who did not provide any specifics about the chemicals. He said the effort to obtain them was what brought the men to the attention of the police.

The impending tenth anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has heightened concerns about terrorism in recent days. German officials are also preparing for the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI later in the month.

But the police did not link the arrests to those events. ?We have no evidence at this point that it has anything to do with the pope?s visit or Sept. 11,? Mr. Otter said.

The police searched the apartments of the two men on Thursday. They also searched an Islamic cultural center, but said that there was no suspicion that the director or members of the center were involved in any plot.

In April, the police arrested two suspects in D�sseldorf and another in Bochum after a long-running investigation found that the men, who are suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda, were planning a bomb attack in the D�sseldorf area. In those arrests, the authorities said the suspects had been acquiring chemicals like hydrogen peroxide and acetone that can be used in bomb production. The suspects downloaded bomb-making recipes from the Internet and tried to extract chemicals for a detonator from a charcoal lighter, the authorities said.

Germany has not suffered the kind of large-scale terrorist attacks that have struck the United States, Britain, Spain and some other Western countries in recent years, but neither has it entirely escaped the reach of terrorism. Mohammed Atta and other Sept. 11 plotters lived in Hamburg for a time, and in March, a Muslim immigrant from Kosovo who said he was inspired by extremist ideology killed two American airmen at the Frankfurt airport.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: September 8, 2011

An earlier version of this article erroneously stated that one of the arrested men, the 24-year-old German, was of Libyan descent.