This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/10/german-police-capture-syrian-man-suspected-of-planning-bomb-attack

The article has changed 8 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
German police capture Syrian man suspected of planning bomb attack German police capture Syrian man suspected of planning bomb attack
(about 2 hours later)
German police have captured a man suspected of planning a bomb attack who had slipped through their grasp during a raid two days ago. German police have detained a 22-year-old Syrian man who was the subject of a nationwide hunt and is believed to have been preparing a bomb attack.
“Tired but overjoyed: we captured the terror suspect last night in Leipzig,” Saxony state police said on Twitter. Jaber Albakr was detained overnight in the eastern city of Leipzig, police in the eastern state of Saxony tweeted early on Monday.
Police had been looking for the suspect, 22-year-old Syrian refugee Jaber Albakr, since he evaded them during a raid on an apartment in the eastern city of Chemnitz on Saturday. Albakr, from the Damascus area of Syria, escaped from authorities on Saturday during a raid of his apartment in nearby Chemnitz. Investigators said they found “several hundred grammes” of a volatile explosive hidden in the apartment, enough to cause significant damage.
Police found several hundred grammes of explosive in the apartment during Saturday’s raid. The weekend raid came after Saxony police were told by Germany’s domestic intelligence service that Albakr may be planning an attack. He had been on the agency’s radar, but police said over the weekend that it was not clear for how long.
Albakr had been in Germany since last year and was officially recognised as a refugee, police said at the weekend. On Saturday morning, Albakr was seen leaving his apartment building as police prepared to raid it. Police fired a warning shot but were unable to stop him.
“The overall picture of the investigation, in particular the amount of the explosive found, suggests that the person was planning to carry out an Islamist-motivated attack,” a spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office told broadcaster SWR on Sunday. Experts are trying to determine whether the explosives they found in the apartment were the same ones used in the November attacks in Paris and ones in Brussels in March. The explosives used in those attacks are known as TATP, or triacetone triperoxide.
The suspicion that a refugee was planning a bomb attack will prove unwelcome news for Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose conservatives have lost support to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party over her open-door migration policy. TATP has been used in many attacks over the years, and is favoured by violent extremists because it’s fairly easy to make and detonate.
Merkel, who said last month she wished she could “turn back the time by many, many years” to better prepare for last year’s influx of almost 1 million migrants, has yet to say whether she will seek a fourth term as chancellor in elections next year. The explosives were destroyed on Saturday in a controlled detonation by bomb squad experts in a pit dug outside the five-storey apartment building because they were considered too dangerous to transport.
In July, the Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for attacks on a train near Wuerzburg and at a music festival in Ansbach that wounded 20 people. German media have said Albakr is believed to be connected to Islamic extremist groups, but Saxony police have not commented on his possible motive or the bomb plot’s target.
Germany has been on edge since two attacks this summer claimed by Islamic State in which many people were injured and both assailants died. Two other attacks unrelated to Islamic extremism, including a deadly mall shooting in Munich, have also contributed to fears.
During the manhunt, federal police had increased security around the country, particularly around “critical infrastructure” such as train stations and airports.