NEWS BRIEF German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said Tuesday the three men arrested earlier in the day had links to the ISIS team that carried out the deadly attacks in Paris last November.
The men—identified as Mahir Al-H., 17, Mohamed A., 26, and Ibrahim M., 18—were arrested after predawn raids in the states of Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony. All were identified as Syrians, and de Maiziere said they were brought from Syria by the same group that smuggled the Paris attackers out of the country. They “could have been a sleeper cell,” de Maiziere said.
Deutsche Welle, the German broadcaster, reported the suspects came to Germany in November 2015 “with the intention of ‘carrying out a previously determined order [from IS] or to await further instructions.’”
The German Federal Prosecutor’s Office, in a statement, said Mahir Al-H. was trained in Raqaa, the de facto ISIS capital, in September 2015. It said he and the others were given passports, U.S. dollars, and mobile phones. They came to Germany from Syria via Turkey and Greece, the statement said. That is typically the route used by migrants fleeing Syria. The statement added “extensive material” had been seized, but noted no orders had been found for the group.