BERLIN – German police are looking for a Syrian man suspected to have been planning a bombing attack after a raid on the apartment where he was thought to be turned up nothing, authorities said Saturday.
Police raided the apartment in the eastern city of Chemnitz after receiving information from Germany’s domestic intelligence agency on Friday night about the alleged attack plans, Saxony police spokesman Tom Bernhardt told reporters.
Saxony police put out an alert, identifying the suspect as 22-year-old Jaber Albakr from Damascus, and urging anyone with any information of his whereabouts to contact authorities. They released a photo of the suspect, a dark-haired man wearing a hooded sweatshirt, and said he was last seen wearing similar clothes.
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Authorities released no further details about the suspect or how long he had been in Germany. The country took in 890,000 asylum seekers last year, and Syrians fleeing civil war in their homeland were the single largest group.
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Neighbours reported hearing an explosion during the raid, but that was the police assault team blowing open the apartment’s door, police spokeswoman Kathlen Zink told The Associated Press.
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She said police found nobody in the apartment, but would not say whether any explosives had been found.
“The investigation is continuing,” she said.
Germany has been on edge since two attacks this summer claimed by the Islamic State in which multiple people were injured and both assailants died. Two other attacks unrelated to Islamic extremism, including a deadly mall shooting in Munich, have also contributed to fears.
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