Germans Arrest 3 in Alleged Terror Plot

An unidentified man, left, believed to be a terror suspect, is led away at the German Federal Court in Karlsruhe, southern Germany, Wednesday, Sept.5, 2007. Authorities said Wednesday they had arrested three suspected Islamic terrorists from a group with "profound hatred of U.S. citizens'' for plotting imminent, massive bomb attacks on U.S. facilities in Germany. (AP Photo/Michael Probst) (Michael Probst - AP)

In diluted form hydrogen peroxide is commonly used in hair coloring and as a disinfectant, but the more than 1,500 pounds obtained by the suspects could have made a bomb with the explosive power of some 1,200 pounds of dynamite, officials said.

"This would have enabled them to make bombs with more explosive power than the ones used in the London and Madrid bombings," said Ziercke, head of the Federal Crime Office.

In a sign of the intense surveillance involving 300 police officers, prosecutors said that at one point police were able to replace the dangerous peroxide in the containers with a harmless solution without the knowledge of the suspects.

The containers were first kept in a garage in the Black Forest region in southern Germany. Then on Aug. 17, one of the three rented a vacation cottage in Oberschledorn under a false name, and was joined there by the other two suspects Sunday, officials said.

Police decided to move in when the suspects transported one of the peroxide containers to the cottage, where they also had taken detonators and electrical components.

Officials seized computers and were trying to determine if anyone else was involved in their activities. The three had no steady work and were collecting unemployment benefits while their main occupation was the plot, officials said.

Police also searched an Islamic information center in the southern town of Ulm, home to one of the suspects.

The arrests came a little over a year after two bombs fashioned from gas canisters failed to explode on German commuter trains. Officials said that attack was motivated by anger over cartoons portraying the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper. Several suspects are on trial in Lebanon, and a Lebanese man has been charged in Germany.

Additionally, three of the four suicide pilots involved in the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the U.S. had lived and studied in Hamburg.

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Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington, Matt Moore in Frankfurt and Melissa Eddy in Berlin contributed to this report.