BERLIN — Three Syrians who entered Germany as migrants have been arrested on suspicion of belonging to the Islamic State and may have links to those who carried out the Paris terrorist attacks last year, the authorities said on Tuesday.
Thomas
de Maizière, the German interior minister, said the travel documents
the men were carrying when they were arrested on Tuesday had been issued
by the same authority as ones found on some of the men who carried out
the attacks in and around Paris
in November. The authorities also said that the three Syrians appeared
to have used the same smugglers to enter Germany and to apply for asylum
as some of those involved in the terrorist assaults in France.
“It could be that this was a sleeper cell,” Mr. de Maizière told reporters.
Prosecutors said in a statement that they believed the three came to Germany in November to carry out a planned attack for the group, also known as ISIL or ISIS, or to await instructions for one.
While
there was no indication the three had been planning a specific attack,
prosecutors said they had sufficient evidence to arrest the men on
suspicion of membership in a foreign terrorist organization.
The
German security authorities have been on high alert since two young men
who entered the country as migrants carried out separate attacks in Bavaria in July, wounding dozens. Both attacks appeared linked to or inspired by the Islamic State, the authorities said.
The
three men arrested on Tuesday were identified only by their first names
and last initials, in keeping with German privacy laws. They entered
the country in November by traveling through Turkey and Greece and had
been living in refugee shelters north of Hamburg, the German news media
reported.
In
October, the suspects “pledged to an Islamic State operative
responsible for operations and attacks outside of Islamic State-held
territory to travel to Europe,” where they were to carry out a planned
attack or await instructions, prosecutors said.
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