German police have arrested three men who were allegedly planning large-scale bomb attacks on U.S. targets in Germany, authorities said Wednesday.

An unidentified man believed to be a bombing plot suspect is led away by masked police at the German Federal Court in Karlsruhe on Wednesday.
(Michael Probst/Associated Press)

The men — two Germans and a Turk — are suspected of planning attacks on locations frequented by Americans in Germany, such as airports, pubs and discos, German federal prosecutor Monika Harms told reporters in Berlin.

"We were able to succeed in recognizing and preventing the most serious and massive bombings," Harms told reporters.

She would not provide specific locations, but a German television station, Sudwestfunk, reported that Frankfurt international airport and the U.S. airbase in Ramstein were among the targets.

Harms said the men had nearly 700 kilograms of hydrogen peroxide that could have been mixed with other chemicals to produce a bomb with the same power as 500 kilograms of TNT.

"This would have enabled them to make bombs with more explosive power than the ones used in the London and Madrid bombings," Joerg Ziercke, head of the German Federal Crime Office, told reporters at the Berlin news conference.

Officials said the suspects came to their attention in late 2006 when they were caught observing a U.S. military facility near Frankfurt.

Officials alleged the men had trained in Pakistan with the Islamic Jihad Union, a group influenced by al-Qaeda. The men are suspected of forming a cell of the group in Germany in 2006.

"This group distinguishes itself through its profound hatred of U.S. citizens," Ziercke said.

He said two of the men were arrested Tuesday at a holiday home in Oberschledorn in central Germany. The third escaped through a bathroom window but was caught 300 metres away by police who had roped off the area.

The men were taken by helicopter to the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, near the French border. The court ordered them to remain in custody until trial.

Bush pleased at arrests

Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, said U.S. President George W. Bush had been briefed on the arrests and was pleased that a potential attack had been prevented and appreciated the work of German authorities.

Thousands of U.S. servicemen and women are stationed with their families in Germany, many at the Ramstein airbase in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate.The base is a major transport hub for the U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Confiscated canisters labelled as hydrogen peroxide are displayed during a news conference in Karlsruhe, Germany on Wednesday.
(Thomas Kienzle/Associated Press)

Germany has not experienced a major terrorist attack in recent years, though in July 2006 two bombs were planted on commuter trains but malfunctioned and never exploded. Several suspects are on trial in Lebanon, and a Lebanese man has been charged in Germany.

The 2006 attempted attack was believed to have been motivated, in part, by anger over cartoons in a Danish newspaper that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad.

'Sensitive' time in Germany

Wolfgang Bosbach, a top legislator under German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said this month is a "highly sensitive" period for Germany, as the government debates whether to extend its military participation in the coalition mission in Afghanistan. Merkel has said the troops will remain in Afghanistan for several more years.

In addition, Bosbach noted that the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States is approaching. The leaders of that attack were based, for a time, in Hamburg.

The German arrests came after Danish authorities announced Tuesday that they had arrested eight men with alleged links to al-Qaeda who were plotting a bombing.

With files from the Associated Press