Germany arrests three in suspected plot to attack Iraqi prime minister during visit

BERLIN — German authorities arrested three Iraqis with alleged al-Qaida links on suspicion they were planning an attack on Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi while he visited Germany on Friday, the country's chief prosecutor said.

The arrests were announced while Allawi was in Berlin and hours before he met German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Investigators who had the three suspects under surveillance noticed an increase in activity, phone calls and suspicious movements by one suspect before Allawi's visit that amounted to "evidence of plans of an attack," chief federal prosecutor Kay Nehm said.

All three were members of the terror group Ansar al-Islam, Nehm said at his agency's headquarters in Karlsruhe. German authorities have said Ansar al-Islam has about 100 supporters in Germany, and U.S. authorities have linked the group to al-Qaida.

The suspects' phone calls grew more hectic after initial intelligence led officials to cancel a Thursday night meeting between Allawi and Iraqi exiles in Berlin, Nehm said.

"From the reactions in the various phone calls to the change in the visit's schedule, one must conclude that they indicate that something was planned against the Iraqi prime minister," he said.

"The conversations differed markedly from the usual support activity" for Ansar al-Islam, he said. "Naturally that made us suspicious."

It was unclear what kind of an attack the group might have planned, and Nehm refused to elaborate. He said the suspects appeared to have acted largely on the spur of the moment — seizing the opportunity of Allawi's visit — and he added that initial searches had not found any bomb-making materials or weapons.

"We haven't found anything yet that suggests an attack," he said.

The arrests were made in early-morning raids in Augsburg, Berlin and Stuttgart. A total of nine residences and other sites were searched, Nehm said.

Prosecutors are preparing charges of membership in a terrorist organization against the three suspects, all men, he said.

Ansar al-Islam, which was formed in the Kurdish parts of Iraq, is believed to include Arab al-Qaida members who fled the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2002. Group bases along the Iranian-Iraqi border were bombed and attacked by Iraqi Kurdish and U.S. Special Forces at the start of the Iraq war.