German police raid second apartment as hunt for ‘Isil bomb maker’ enters second day

Germany was on terror alert on Sunday as police hunted a Syrian asylum seeker suspected of plotting a bomb attack, placing his flatmate under arrest and raiding a contact’s home after finding explosives in the fugitive’s apartment.

Federal police stepped up security at airports, train stations and other “critical infrastructure,” saying it was unclear whether Jaber Albakr, 22, was carrying more bomb-making material or weapons.

Albakr had allegedly been planning a bomb attack on a German airport when police moved in to arrest him in Chemnitz, about 160 miles south of Berlin. But as officers prepared to burst into his flat he left the communist-era apartment block carrying a rucksack.

Saxony police were tipped off by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency that Albakr, who arrived in Germany in February 2015, might be planning an imminent attack.

Reports have linked Albakr to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) and he is believed to have consulted websites to learn how to make bombs.

Police said they fired a “warning shot” when they saw the Damascus-born refugee leave the apartment block, but he somehow managed to escape. German media were quick to denounce the failed arrest as a police “blunder.”