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Germany Says Al-Qaida Suspects Were Planning Bombing

   VOA News  April 30, 2011
   An alleged al-Qaida member, second left, is being brought to a building
   of the federal court in Karlsruhe, Germany, April 30, 2011

Photo: AP

   An alleged al-Qaida member, second left, is being brought to a building
   of the federal court in Karlsruhe, Germany, April 30, 2011

   German officials say three suspected al-Qaida members arrested on
   Friday had been planning a bomb attack in the country.
   Prosecutor Rainer Griesbaum told a news conference Saturday that the
   trio had planned to attack a crowded place but had not yet picked a
   target. He said they were still in the experimentation stage.
   Authorities said they decided to arrest the three when surveillance
   indicated they were pursuing making a detonator, a sign they might be
   close to carrying out an attack. The suspects had reportedly discussed
   planting the bomb on a bus.
   The three men, all from Morocco, were taken into custody Friday in the
   western German cities of Duesseldorf and Bochum.
   The main suspect, a 29-year-old Moroccan citizen identified as
   Abdeladim El-K., has been charged with membership in a foreign
   terrorist organization. Officials say he trained last year in an
   al-Qaida camp in the Pakistani region of Waziristan near the Afghan
   border.
   The other suspects are a 31-year-old and a 19-year-old.
   Police arrested the men on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack and
   said they posed a "concrete and imminent danger" to the country.
   In a statement, Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said the
   incident proves that Germany remains a target of international
   terrorists.
   Germany had previously received information that al-Qaida may have been
   planning a "Mumbai-style" attack in the country later this year - a
   reference to the 2008 terrorist siege in India's financial capital in
   which 166 were killed.
   Officials said the three suspects had praised Thursday's deadly bomb
   attack on a cafe in Marrakech, Morocco.
   Moroccan officials say the bombing appears to be the work of al-Qaida.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

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