German police have arrested three teenagers on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack and preparing “a serious act of violence endangering the state,” according to Irish Independent.
Prosecutors issued a statement on Friday saying that three teenagers, two girls aged 15 and 16 and a 15-year-old boy, from the Düsseldorf region in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, have been arrested and are believed to be planning murder offences. They are also “strongly suspected of planning and intending to carry out an Islamist terrorist attack.”
The state’s Central Office of Terrorism Investigation requested an arrest warrant for the teens over the Easter holiday because they formed a chat group and did not give the date or location of the attack, but investigators said they saw the danger.
Authorities did not provide further details about the alleged plot or elaborate on how advanced the plans were, citing the young age of the suspects and the ongoing investigation.
Despite, the Bild newspaper reported that the trio allegedly planned to attack worshippers in churches and police stations with knives and Molotov cocktails, following the ideology of the ISIS group.
Similar cases are not uncommon in Germany, as in January German authorities arrested three people on suspicion of plotting to attack a cathedral in Cologne on New Year’s Eve. Another case occurred last month when police detained two Afghan nationals linked to ISIS on suspicion of planning to attack police near the Swedish parliament in response to the burning of copies of the Koran.
Police in northern Germany said on Thursday they were offering a 5,000 euro reward for providing information about last week’s arson attack on a synagogue in Oldenburg.
Anonymous online users somehow linked to ISIS have also threatened to attack football stadiums across Europe, including in Germany. For example, they published a picture of red target markers on groups of people outside Munich’s Allianz Arena ahead of a major match at the end of March. Still, this week’s European Champions League matches went well, albeit with increased security measures.
