The fourth man who had been residing in Germany since 2014 is believed to have formerly worked for a Syrian terrorist organization as an explosives expert.
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Three Syrian men have been arrested on suspicion of planning an attack in Düsseldorf for Islamic State while a fourth suspect is in custody in Paris after alerting officials there to the planned plot.
Prosecutors allege that Saleh A. and Hamza C. joined ISIS in Syria in the spring of 2014, where the terror group’s senior leadership commissioned them to attack Dusseldorf. After detonating the bombs, the plan was to unleash a group of gunmen to take out as many victims as possible.
Germany has not been the victim of a major attack like those seen in Belgium, France, Spain and Britain.
The plot did not proceed further due to Saleh A.’s arrest, the statement said. Please see our terms of service for more information.
The pair headed to Turkey in May 2014, and from there traveled separately to Germany via Greece.
The chilling details that emerged showed that two of the attackers wanted to detonate suicide vests in central Duesseldorf while the other members would look to kill as many people in the vicinity with a combination of explosives and gunfire.
In January, they allegedly persuaded Mahood B.to participate in the attack, while Saleh A. established contact with Abd Arahman A. K. According to prosecutors, Abd Arahman A.K. who previously made suicide vests and grenades for the extremist Nusra Front group in Syria was supposed to make the suicide vests.
The prosecutors added that there was no evidence “that the accused had already initiated the concrete implementation of their attack plan”.
The three were arrested in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg and Baden-Wuerttemberg, and their homes were being searched.
“Germany, just like other European countries, finds itself in the crosshairs of worldwide terrorism”, a spokeswoman for German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said.
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The reduction in the numbers has eased pressure on German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who came under fierce criticism previous year for welcoming hundreds of thousands of migrants with the optimistic slogan “We can do this”.
