Germany arrests 3 alleged ISIS militants

Three young Syrian men arrestedin Germany on Tuesday were ISIS members who probably came intothe country via the same network that smuggled militants intoFrance to carry out deadly attacks last November, the Germangovernment said.

Federal prosecutors said police special forces arrested thethree in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein on suspicionof being sent by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria"either to carry out a missionthat they had been informed about or to wait for furtherinstructions" for an attack.

• Militants may be among refugees, Germanpolice warn
• ANALYSIS |German anti-refugee vote leaves Merkel in a political mess

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said they arrived inlate 2015, probably with the help of the same network thatfunnelled ISIS militants into Paris to carry out shootings andbombings that killed 130 people on Nov. 13 last year.

ISIS is not only targetingFrance or Germany but the entire West. GermanInterior Minister Thomas deMaiziere

"Everything points to the fact that the same smugglerorganization behind the Paris attacks also brought the three mento Germany who were arrested," de Maiziere told a newsconference. "Indications are that their travel documents allcame from the same workshop in that region."

European governments are on high security alert after aseries of militant strikes in France, Belgium and Germany, wherethree attacks this summer were carried out by asylum-seekers andtwo were claimed by ISIS.

Around a million migrants arrived in Germany last year, andconcern about their presence has grown since the attacks,raising pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel to cap arrivals at 200,000 refugees per year, as her Bavarian allies are demanding.She refuses to set such a limit.

More than 200 police were involved in the operation toarrest the three men, aged 17 to 26. ARD television said theywere held after raids at refugee housing in towns north ofHamburg. German authorities searched the flats of the threesuspects but did not reveal what they might have found.

French connection

De Maiziere noted that two of the Paris attackers last yearhad registered as refugees. "That suggests that ISISwasdetermined to send these kinds of people to blend in withrefugees in order to cause uncertainty in Europe and Germany."

He added: "The French connection is what makes this caseso special. We have to find out if these are individual links orif there is a larger network. It shows ISIS is not only targetingFrance or Germany or Italy or Belgium or Britain but theentire West."

Federal prosecutors said one suspect, Mahir Al-H., joinedISIS in September 2015. He received weapons andexplosives training in Raqqa, the militant group's de factocapital in Syria.

In October, he and the two other suspects, Mohamed A. andIbrahim M., signed up with an ISIS official responsiblefor operations and attacks outside the group's territory andtravelled to Europe, the prosecutors said.

ISIS allegedly provided them with passports, cash and cell phones with a specialcommunications program. The suspects travelled through Turkeyand Greece before arriving in Germany in mid-November 2015, atthe height of the migrant crisis.