German police searched nationwide today for a 22-year-old Syrian man believed to have been preparing a bombing attack and were questioning a second Syrian man on suspicion he was involved in the plot.
The man in custody was one of three apprehended in the eastern city of Chemnitz yesterday. He was the renter of the apartment that police raided in their search for the main suspect, Jaber Albakr from the Damascus area of Syria, Saxony police spokesman Tom Bernhardt told The Associated Press. The other two men have been released.
He said the man in custody was Albakr's "countryman" but would not give other details.
"We believe he is a possible co-conspirator," Bernhardt said.
Bernhardt also confirmed reports that Albakr had come to Germany in the flood of 890,000 migrants who entered the country in 2015 and had been granted asylum.
Nobody was in the apartment when police SWAT teams blew down the door midday yesterday, but investigators found "several hundred grams" of a volatile explosive stashed in the flat. Even though it was a relatively small quantity, it could have been enough to cause significant damage, Bernhardt said.
"With this highly volatile explosive, even a few hundred grams is no trifle," he said. "For an explosive of this type, it was a considerable amount."
He said experts were still trying to determine whether it was the same explosive used in the deadly Nov. 13 attacks in Paris and the March 22 attacks in Brussels known as TATP, or triacetone triperoxide.
"It's comparable to that," he said.
TATP has been used in many other attacks over the years, and is favoured by violent extremists because it's fairly easy to make and detonate.
The explosives were destroyed in a controlled detonation by bomb squad experts in a pit dug outside the five-story apartment building where they were found because they were considered too dangerous to transport.
The raid came after Saxony police were given a tip from Germany's domestic intelligence service that Albakr may be planning an attack. He had been on the agency's radar, but Bernhardt said it was not clear how long.
Der Spiegel magazine, citing Saxony police, said Albakr left the apartment building yesterday morning while police were at the scene preparing their raid. It was not immediately clear how he eluded police.
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