(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-09-06 09:54

KARLSRUHE, Germany -- Germany said Wednesday it had arrested three Islamic extremists preparing a massive bombing campaign targeting Americans and US installations in the country.

A combination photo shows three men as they are escorted from the German Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe September 5, 2007, who are suspected of planning "massive bomb attacks" on US installations and belonging to an Islamist militant group. [Reuters]

"They were planning massive attacks," Federal Prosecutor Monika Harms said.

"As possible targets ... the suspects named discotheques and pubs and airports frequented by Americans with a view to detonating explosives loaded in cars and killing or injuring many people," Harms told a press conference.

The men, two Germans and a Turk, had stockpiled more than 700 kilogrammes (1,500 pounds) of hydrogen peroxide, the same chemical used by suicide bombers in the 2005 attacks on London's transport system which killed 56 people, Harms said.

This had the explosive power of 550 kilogrammes of TNT, according to the prosecutor.

Drums containing the chemicals were moved recently to a holiday home in the Sauerland area near Frankfurt which had been rented under a false name.

The men, in their 20s, had met up on Sunday to begin producing bombs, Harms said, but were arrested on Tuesday.

They are suspected members of Islamic Jihad Union, a group with roots in Uzbekistan that has ties to Al-Qaeda, and attended a training camp in Pakistan in 2006.

According to federal police chief Joerg Ziercke, they had been under surveillance since December, when one of the three was briefly detained on suspicion of spying on a US military base in Hanau near Frankfurt.

The men were "driven by a hatred of US citizens," Ziercke said.

About 64,000 US military personnel are based in Germany, according to Pentagon figures.

German officials did not confirm radio reports that the men had been targeting Frankfurt international airport, one of Europe's busiest, and the giant US military base in Ramstein.

"There were no concrete targets," Deputy Interior Minister August Hanning told journalists in Berlin. "But the German police are speculating that Frankfurt airport was one of these targets."

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