Berlin police raid mosque and arrest two people

From the Belfast Telegraph and the German edition of The Local

German police have raided a mosque in Berlin where a bombing attack was allegedly being planned. 

Two suspected Islamists accused of belonging to an unidentified extremist group were arrested in Britz as part of the operation today.A spokesperson for Berlin police said special forces stormed the Seituna Mosque in Charlottenburg, an affluent western district in the German capital, at 3pm local time. A car thought to be associated with the arrested men, aged 28 and 46, has also been cordoned off after a suspicious object was found, with police evacuating homes within a 300m safety cordon.

Officers also searched an Islamic centre in Sophie-Charlotten-Straße in the western district of Charlottenburg, a police spokesman told The Local, but no weapons or dangerous items had been found by the time the raid ended.

Police said that they launched the raids after receiving clues from members of the public about a “dangerous situation” – but insisted there was no evidence of a plan to attack the German capital.

Security sources told Der Tagesspiegel on Thursday evening that Islamists may have planned an attack outside Berlin in a western German state. Police said that the raids were conducted by members of the city SEK (SWAT), but were unable to confirm reports from Bild that Germany’s elite anti-terrorist police unit GSG-9 were involved.