Six IS-linked Syrians detained in Germany after 500 police raid apartments

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – German prosecutors on Tuesday said police detained six Syrians suspected of planning terror attacks using “weapons or explosives” on behalf of the Islamic State (IS).

The suspects arrested by police were between the ages of 20 and 28, the general prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt said in a statement.

Nearly 500 police officers took part in apartment raids which were conducted in the cities of Kassel, Hannover, Essen, and Leipzig, Reuters reported.

The prosecutor’s office added that all six of the arrested Syrians had applied for asylum status but did not say if their applications had been approved. Four of them had arrived in Germany in December 2014, and two in 2015.

“[The six Syrians] are suspected of being members of the foreign terrorist organizations that calls itself Islamic State,” the prosecutor’s statement read.

“The accused are also suspected of having planned an attack against a public target in Germany using either weapons or explosives,” the statement continued.

The arrests are the second time this month Syrians have been detained on suspicion of planning a terror attack in the country.

Earlier this month, authorities arrested a Syrian teenager suspected of planning an “Islamist-motivated” bomb attack in the country.

The 19-year-old, identified as Yamen A., was detained after police investigated reports he was planning an attack in Germany “with the aim of killing as many people as possible.”

Germany has been the target of several terror attacks over the past few years.

Last December, a failed Tunisian asylum seeker killed 12 people after plowing a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin.

This year, concrete blocks have been set up around markets at several squares in the capital as the holiday season approaches.

Editing by Sam A.