German police on Tuesday arrested three Syrian men on suspicion of being Islamic State operatives sent to launch attacks, prosecutors say.
Advertisement
Federal prosecutors said that the three suspects, aged 17, 18, and 26, were sent to Germany in November previous year to “wait for further instructions” on missions they’ve been asked to carry out. It was unclear where any attack would have taken place.
The three men were arrested in northern Germany on Tuesday.
A statement coming from the Federal Prosecutor’s office said that “concrete missions or orders have not so far been found in the course of investigations carried out so far”. They are suspected of membership in a foreign terrorist organization.
German authorities have urged the public not to confuse migrants and “terrorists”, but have acknowledged that more jihadists may have entered the country among the one million asylum seekers who arrived a year ago. She refuses any cap.
Officers from Federal Office of Criminal Investigations (BKA) arrested three men at refugee homes in the states of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, while seizing mobile telephones, hard drives and other documentation.
It said a suspect identified as Mahir Al-H. became a member of Islamic State in September 2015 and received weapons and explosives training in Raqqa, the militant group’s de facto capital in Syria.
“The three were supposed to fulfil an existing order [for an attack] or wait for further instructions”, the prosecutors said.
The three traveled to Germany via Turkey and Greece, the route used by most migrants to Europe past year.
Advertisement
The three were provided with passports by IS and were given a “high four-figure sum” of cash in U.S. dollars as well as cellphones with a pre-installed communication program, prosecutors said in a statement.
