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German police capture Syrian man suspected of planning bomb attack | German police capture Syrian man suspected of planning bomb attack |
(about 3 hours later) | |
German police have arrested a 22-year-old Syrian man with alleged links to Islamic State who they believe was planning to carry out a major terrorist attack at a Berlin airport. | |
Jaber al-Bakr was found by police when they stormed a high-rise block of flats in the eastern city of Leipzig in the early hours of Monday morning following a tipoff by two other Syrian men. | |
“We have positively identified him,” a police spokesman said. “Two Syrian men detained him in their flat.” | |
The arrest brought to a dramatic close a 48-hour manhunt, with extra security measures put in place at airports and railway stations around the country over fears Bakr planned to carry out a bomb attack. | |
Investigators found about 1kg of a highly volatile explosive in the man’s third-floor flat in Chemnitz. They identified it as TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, 200g of which is enough to cause extensive damage. The explosives were detonated in a specially dug pit outside the apartment because bomb experts considered them too dangerous to transport. | |
It was the fourth alleged planned bomb attack with an Isis motive that German authorities have foiled this year. Two other attacks this summer claimed by Isis in which people were injured and both assailants died, have contributed to fears Germany has become increasingly vulnerable to terrorist attacks. | |
Bakr had been under surveillance by Germany’s intelligence service, the BND, for several months and was classed as a high, level-two, threat. But police in Chemnitz had reportedly only been made aware of the threat he posed on Friday. | |
A surveillance team was stationed close to Bakr’s flat in southern Chemnitz. Bakr, apparently aware he was being watched, left his flat at about 7am on Saturday morning, undeterred by a warning shot from police. | |
Police initially thought he had returned to his flat, when in fact he had fled via an underground passage. A photograph taken as he emerged from his flat, distributed throughout Germany on social media, showed a man in a black sweatshirt, carrying a rucksack. | |
Bakr, from Saasaa near Damascus, is reported to have arrived in Germany via Austria as a refugee in February 2015. He was registered by police in Rosenheim, Bavaria, his fingerprints were taken and his details were compared with those in the international register of terrorist suspects, but no match was found. He was sent to asylum seeker accommodation in the eastern city of Chemnitz and was officially recognised as a refugee in June last year. | |
Initial evidence suggests he had researched bombmaking methods on the internet as well as frequently visiting Isis websites. Investigators alleged he had definite links to Islamic State and had been schooled by them in bombmaking. | |
Police were alerted to the whereabouts of Bakr in the Leipzig flat on Hartriegelstrasse – 60 miles (100km) from Chemnitz – by the two other Syrian refugees. They had met Bakr at Leipzig train station at about noon on Saturday, describing him as exhausted, upset and dishevelled. They offered him a bed in their flat, but realised only later that evening that he was wanted after police sent out a message via social media in Arabic. They reportedly tied him to a sofa before calling police. | |
Police said the men had subsequently sent them a photo of Bakr tied to the sofa via WhatsApp as proof, and urged them to come quickly as they would not be able to restrain him for much longer. A 33-year-old man who rented Bakr a room he allegedly used as a bomb laboratory has also been arrested. | |
Federal prosecutors have taken over the investigation. |