BERLIN: German police boarded a Dutch airliner at Cologne airport yesterday and arrested two men suspected of planning to take part in terrorist attacks.
A police spokesman identified the suspected militants, on a KLM aircraft about to take off for Amsterdam, as a 23-year-old Somali and a 24-year-old German born in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu.
Police in the North Rhine-Westphalia region of western Germany said they suspected the men were planning a violent form of jihad, and had found farewell letters.
“It looks as if they were on their way to a terrorist training camp, possibly in Pakistan or Afghanistan,” said terrorism expert Rolf Tophoven.
Officials had discovered documents in the suspects’ luggage which pointed to terrorist intentions, said security sources, but police stressed there was no indication the two were about to launch an attack.
“German police authorities removed two passengers from the plane ... All the passengers had to get out for a check of all the luggage, and they removed the suspects’ luggage,” said a spokesman for KLM.
The flight, KL1804, continued its journey to Amsterdam just over an hour later.
Security sources said they were not excluding the possibility that the two men had loose contacts to a group of people in the western Sauerland region, three of whom were arrested last year.
