BERLIN (Reuters) – German police arrested seven people on Thursday on suspicion of founding a terrorist organization with the aim of carrying out high-profile attacks similar to Islamic State, prosecutors said.
The Turkmen, Tajik and Kyrgyz nationals arrested in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia had known each other for a long time and entered the country from Ukraine shortly after the war began in 2022, said prosecutors.
They formed a terrorist organization in June 2022 and had been considering targets in Germany and trying to procure weapons, but at the time of arrest did not have concrete plans for an attack, according to a statement from prosecutors.
Except for the Kyrgyz national, the suspects arrested in Germany had also been collecting money for Islamic State since April 2022 and repeatedly transferred it to the group abroad.
Dutch authorities on Thursday arrested two additional suspects connected to the group, a man from Tajikistan and his Kyrgyz wife, who had resided in the Netherlands since 2022.
The man is suspected of being an Islamic State member and receiving the order to plot an attack, although plans were not yet concrete, Dutch prosecutors said in a separate statement.
(Writing by Miranda Murray, Editing by Friederike Heine)
