Three suspected Islamist extremists have been arrested in Germany on suspicion of preparing a “serious act of violence”, with an assault rifle and knives also seized, authorities said on Tuesday.
Police swooped on the homes of two German-Lebanese brothers aged 15 and 20 in the city of Mannheim, and a 22-year-old German-Turkish man from the Hochtaunus district of Hessen state on Sunday.
German media reports said they were planning to attack Christmas markets in either Frankfurt or Mannheim.
Local prosecutors and police said in a statement that the act they were planning could have “endangered the state”, without disclosing further details.
Germany has faced a string of attacks and plots by suspected Islamists in recent years and has been on high alert since Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.
The brothers detained in Mannheim, who had a “strong religious ideology and profound sympathy” for the Islamic State (IS) group, had made concrete preparations for an attack, authorities said.
The assault rifle, along with ammunition, was found during a search of the 22-year-old German-Turkish man’s home, they said. Several knives, a balaclava and mobile phones were also turned up during searches.
But officials stressed that “at no point was there any concrete danger to the public”. The suspects are in pre-trial detention.
Roman Poseck, Hessen state interior minister, praised law enforcement officials for making the arrests in “good time, before any acts could be carried out”.
Poseck added: “At the same time, it is once again clear that the security situation is tense.”
Germany has in recent times seen a series of allegedly Islamist-motivated knife attacks.
Three people were killed and eight wounded in a stabbing spree at a street festival in the western city of Solingen in August.
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Police arrested a Syrian suspect over the attack that was claimed by IS.
In June, a police officer was killed in a knife attack in Mannheim, with an Afghan national held as the main suspect.
The fall of Bashar al-Assad has stoked fears that IS could be revived in Syria.
But the international community has so far reacted cautiously to the prospect of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the rebel groups that ousted Assad, taking control in the country.
