Photo shows a house in Düsseldorf, 30 April 2011, in which German police arrested al-Qaeda suspects on Friday.
Credit: Reuters/Wolfgang RattayBy Diana NiedernhoeferKARLSRUHE, Germany | SAT Apr 30, 2011 2: 11 pm EDT
KARLSRUHE, Germany (Reuters)-three suspected al Qaeda members had a bomb attack in Germany for four months when she was arrested, federal prosecutors said were planned.
Rainer Griesbaum, a Federal Ministry, told a press conference on Saturday that the trio, led by a 29-year-old Moroccan, had planned to explode their device in a crowded area but not yet picked a target.
"They were still in the experimental phase," Griesbaum said. "They were planning to a device packed with pieces of metal in the middle of a large crowd explode."
German authorities said the suspects, arrested on Friday, had discussed plants the bomb on a bus or at a bus stop.
The three were detained in police raids in Düsseldorf and the nearby city of Bochum at 6: 30 pm on Friday after authorities, who had followed the group, decided that they could get close to carrying out an attack.
Prosecutors said that the public was not in danger.
BILD newspaper reported that the Eurovision Song Contest, watched by more than 100 million television viewers, a possible target. The contest will be held in the Western City of Duesseldorf on 14 May.
The suspected leader, a 29-year-old college drop-out identified as Abdeladim El-k., was charged with planning a terror attack in Germany and a member of a foreign terrorist organization. The other two suspects are still called into question.
Griesbaum said the 29-year-old Moroccan had attended an al-Qaeda terror camp in the Waziristan region of Pakistan near the Afghan border in 2010. He returned to Germany in May 2010 and tried to build a terrorist network from here with an estimated seven to eight members.
"But it can also be more than that," said Joerg Ziercke, Chairman of the federal crime Office (BKA), at the press conference at the Federal Prosecutor's Office in Karlsruhe. "We will learn more with our investigation."
The suspects had cheered Thursday, bombing in Marrakesh where 15 people were killed, Griesbaum said.
NOT A SUICIDE ATTACK
The other suspects are a 31-year-old electrician identified as Jamil s., who holds dual German and Moroccan nationality, and a 19-year-old with German and Iranian citizenship, in the midst of c., who was in high school.
Jamil s. was charged to regulate the financing of the attack and papers for Abdeladim El-k. In the midst of c. was responsible to provide encrypted communications.
Germany's Der Spiegel news magazine reported on Saturday that the CIA, as well as Morocco's intelligence service had worked with the German authorities in the investigation.
Ziercke said the three had inspected public buildings, and information about explosives downloaded from the internet.
"But we have no indication that they were planning a suicide attack," said Ziercke.
Authorities said they decided to launch the raid on Friday when the suspects are a "detonator of a bomb" discussed by hexamine extracting from barbecue firelighters and mixing that with hydrogen peroxide and citric acid.
Last year, a court in Duesseldorf convicted four militants who admitted "a monstrous massacre" of plan with car bomb attacks on U.S. targets. They were known as the "Sauerland group" after the area of Western Germany where they were caught.
European countries have struggled with militant threats for years, regularly arresting individuals or groups suspected of planning attacks some fear can mirror bombings in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005 where more than 200 people died.
Berlin considers Germany as a potential target, because the nearly 5,000 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, the third largest contingent of the fight against the Taliban-led insurgency 150.000-strong international force.
(Writing by Erik Kirschbaum; editing by Robert Woodward)
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