Raids foil plot to bring 7/7 terror to Germany

· Islamist trio had 700kg of explosives say officials
· US bases, pubs and airport said to be on target list
A German police officer patrols at Frankfurt airport
A German police officer patrols at Frankfurt airport. Photograph: Julian Stratenschulte/AP
An alleged Islamist terrorist plan to blow up US targets in Germany, which bore similarities to recent British terror plots and could have proven deadlier than the London or Madrid attacks, was foiled as the suspects began assembling bombs, German officials said yesterday.

Three men were in custody last night, two of them German nationals who had converted to Islam, after security services swooped on a rented house in Sauerland, 60 miles east of Düsseldorf. The trio had amassed more than 700kg (1,500lbs) of hydrogen peroxide and had been scouting out US bases, discos, pubs and Frankfurt's international airport as potential targets, officials said.

The alleged plot shared some details with recent terrorist attempts foiled in Britain, notably the use of hydrogen peroxide to make the bombs and the targeting of airports and social venues. However, British officials suggested there was no link with any network in the UK.

German officials said an attack appeared imminent and major loss of life had been averted. Jörg Ziercke, the head of Germany's Federal Crime Office, told a news conference that the volume of explosive "would have been enough to cause damage on a greater scale than in London and Madrid". He added that the suspects were motivated by a "deep hatred" of US citizens" and were aiming to cause as many victims as possible.

The men, named only as Daniel S, Fritz G and Aden Y, were in their 20s and were all said to have attended training camps in Pakistan. In Germany they are accused of setting up a national cell of the Islamic Jihad Union, a shadowy splinter group from an Uzbek grouping thought to have become obsolete.

In the months before their capture they had made a living from temporary work or unemployment benefits while spending most of their time planning the attack, the German authorities said.

News of their capture came a day after Danish police arrested eight young Muslims also suspected of preparing for a bomb attack. Officials said no immediate link had been established between the two cells. The federal prosecutor's office also declined to comment on whether there was any connection to groups in Britain or elsewhere in Europe, saying investigations were still at an early stage. But some speculated that the suspects may have hoped to stage a reminder attack to coincide with the sixth anniversary of September 11.

"These groups are highly motivated by getting as much media resonance as possible. That means that symbolic acts, like the anniversary, become very important," said Klaus Segbers, an expert on terrorism at the Otto-Suhr-Institut, in Berlin.

The German cell aroused suspicion when members were seen snooping around a US military facility in Hanau, near Frankfurt. Since then a 300-strong force has tracked them day and night in what became Germany's biggest counter-terrorism operation since September 11.

On Tuesday afternoon, when fears grew that they were assembling a bomb, members of an elite anti-terrorist unit stormed the rural holiday house they were renting. Two were arrested immediately but the third fled through a window.

He was caught 300 metres away by police who had cordoned off the area. In the struggle a shot was fired. After the arrests, raids took place across Germany and police seized money and computers.

Fear of possible terrorist attacks has been running high in Germany, not least because it has troops stationed in Afghanistan and on the coast of Lebanon. The interior minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, has spoken recently of high-level security risks and compared the threat to that of America before September 11. In April, the US embassy in Berlin announced it was tightening security at its diplomatic and military facilities across the country.

Germany has long confronted an Islamist terrorist threat. The so-called Hamburg cell of bombers was instrumental in plotting the September 11 attacks. Last year, two men of Lebanese origin tried to explode crude suitcase bombs on two trains in Germany. The bombs failed to go off. Despite praise for the latest arrests, politicians and commentators say the country needs to remain on high alert.

"It shows that the terrorist threat here isn't abstract. It's real," German chancellor Angela Merkel said at a news conference in Berlin.