BERLIN
Police have foiled a "possible terror attack" near Frankfurt after arresting a married couple with a homemade bomb, according to German officials.
Peter Beuth, interior minister of the Federal State of Hesse, told reporters in Wiesbaden that police had prevented a "terror attack" in Oberursel by capturing the couple Thursday morning.
He said: "We can conclude that we were able to prevent a terrorist attack."
Stefan Mueller, police chief of Western Hesse, confirmed Thursday that the arrest of Halil D., a 35-year-old ethnic-Turkish German citizen, and his 34-year-old Turkish wife Senay D. had prevented a possible attack in Oberursel near Frankfurt.
"According to what we know at the moment, we can say that we have prevented an attack," Mueller said in a press conference at the police headquarters in Wiesbaden.
"The suspects belong to the Islamist-Salafist circles in the Frankfurt Rhine-Main region," he added.
Mueller underlined that the couple has been under police surveillance for weeks and recent suspicious activities of the couple has led to the raid Thursday morning.
"The suspects purchased hydrogen peroxide from a construction equipment store late last month. And the man was recently seen walking along the route of a bicycle race," he said.
The police chief declined to comment on the question of whether the couple had planned an attack on Frankfurt’s May 1 cycling race, and stressed that the investigation was still ongoing.
He said that during the searches at the house of the suspects, police found a functional homemade pipe bomb, chemicals that could be used to make explosives, a G3 assault rifle and ammunition.
Violent murders
The German authorities have recently taken strong measures against extremist groups in the country following reports of violent murders and atrocities committed by Daesh in Syria and Iraq.
German security organizations estimate that about 700 Germans, mostly young immigrants from Salafist groups, have travelled to Syria and joined ISIL since the beginning of the civil war.
About 6,000 Salafists are active in Germany, according to the Interior Ministry – a number which accounts for a very small minority of the Muslim population.
Germany has the second-largest Muslim population in Western Europe after France.
Among the four million Muslims in the country, three million are of Turkish origin.
Germany’s leading Muslim organizations have said the source of the radicalization of some young immigrants is not Islam itself, but sociological problems they face, such as discrimination, unemployment or a lack of future prospects.
