Police on Wednesday arrested an asylum seeker from Tunisia on suspicion of plotting an Islamic State-linked terrorist attack in Germany in a case that is drawing parallels with a deadly Christmas market attack.
“According to evidence gathered so far, attack plans were still in an early phase and had not selected a specific target,”
-said a spokesperson for the Hesse state criminal investigation office.
German authorities said the 36-year-old Tunisian is suspected of recruiting for ISIS in Germany since August 2015 and building up a network of supporters with the aim of carrying out a terrorist attack in Germany, Frankfurt’s prosecutor general said in a statement.
He had already lived in Germany from 2003 to 2013, but returned in August 2015 using an alias, prosecutors said. In August 2016, he was then arrested for carrying out the remainder of a previous 2008 sentence for bodily harm. Once his 43-day sentence was finished the Tunisian was detained pending deportation to his homeland.
He is also wanted by Tunisian authorities on suspicion of “participating in planning and carrying out” the museum attack.
German police arrested three men in Berlin on Tuesday (January 31) on suspicion of having close links to Islamic State militants and planning to travel to the Middle East for combat training.
