The German city of Chemnitz was in lockdown Saturday after armed police launched a huge manhunt for a Syrian suspected of planning a bomb attack, as the country grapples with a weakened sense of security following recent terror assaults.
Police, who told people to stay in their homes, named the suspect as 22-year-old Syrian Jaber Albakr. Photographs posted on social media showed armed police clad in black balaclavas and helmets at an apartment building in the eastern city.
Germany has been on edge after suffering two attacks claimed by the ISIL in July — an axe rampage on a train in Wuerzburg that injured five and a suicide bombing in Ansbach that left 15 wounded.
In the latest alert, police in the state of Saxony issued a search warrant for Albakr, saying he was born in Syria in January 1994.
They said Albakr was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and was “suspected of preparing a bomb attack”.
A search of an apartment in Chemnitz detected traces of explosives but failed to capture the suspect or find a bomb, a police spokesman said.
He said police launched Saturday’s operation after receiving information from domestic intelligence services.
“We are carrying out in Chemnitz a large-scale operation due to suspicions that a bomb attack was being prepared,” police said on Twitter, urging residents to stay at home.
“The explosion heard in the area was a police entry measure. The wanted person has not been found,” police added.
The attacks in July rattled Germans’ sense of security and fuelled concerns over the country’s record influx of migrants and refugees last year.
Source: AFP
