Suspects Plotted Horror to Mark 9/11 Anniversary

The three suspected terrorists arrested in Germany Tuesday, who were planning car bomb attacks on the Frankfurt Airport and the US base at Ramstein, had been under such close surveillance as they made their preparations that police were able to secretly swap the potent hydrogen peroxide they were using to make explosives with a diluted solution, Der Spiegel reports in a detailed account of the operation.

The attacks were to be timed to coincide with the anniversary of 9/11.The three suspects belong to a German cell of Islamic Jihad Union, and were trained in a camp in Pakistan. Two of them are German converts to Islam.  "The intention was to commit an attack and cause as many deaths as possible," one official said. "Concrete preparations had begun, so we had to act." (More Islamic Jihad Union stories.)