Police in the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia broke up an Islamist cell that was preparing a terrorist attack with axes and knives. On Thursday, 350 police officers and members of a counterterrorism unit raided and searched the apartments of five suspected young men in the district of Düren. Three members of this group are minors.
“The men are accused of plotting a violent act motivated by terrorism and using propaganda material from the Islamic State terrorist organization,” police said in a statement.
According to Der Spiegel, the police have long focused on alleged supporters of the Islamic State terrorist militia, who organized terrorist training at the end of last year. According to investigators, suspects aged 16 to 22 were practicing axe and knife attacks in a forest near Aachen. The accused, including two Germans, two men with German-Russian citizenship and one with Turkish citizenship, had apparently not implemented a specific criminal plan yet.
