Seven men were arrested on Thursday in the Netherlands on suspicion of plotting a large-scale attack that Dutch prosecutors said might have been foiled following a months-long investigation.
The national prosecutor’s office said in a statement that armed police arrested the men in the towns of Arnhem, about 100km south of Amsterdam, and Weert in the southern Netherlands close to the borders of Germany and Belgium.
The investigation was launched by intelligence suggesting the alleged ring leader, a 34-year-old man of Iraqi heritage, wanted to carry out an attack at the site of a large event and cause multiple casualties, the statement said.
Photo: AFP
The suspects allegedly wanted to use bomb vests and rifles to do harm at the event and planned to detonate a car bomb at another location, prosecutors said.
An investigation of potential targets was continuing.
Prosecutors said the suspects ranged in age from 21 to 34. Three of them, including the 34-year-old Iraqi, were previously convicted of attempting to travel overseas to join militant networks.
The men were attempting to obtain AK47 rifles, handguns, bomb vests, grenades and raw materials for bombs, and were looking for opportunities to train with such weapons, the statement said.
Prosecutors said that the investigation sped up this month because of the suspects’ “advanced preparations.”
Dutch Minister of Justice and Security Ferd Grapperhaus told Dutch national broadcaster NOS that police acted in time to prevent an attack.
“In a sense it is serious, but luckily it’s also good news — a terrorist cell that was plotting an attack has been taken down,” Grapperhaus said.
“They weren’t so far that it was a danger to society, in the sense that it was nearly too late, but they were quite far in their preparations,” he said.
The men were to be brought before an investigating judge yesterday at a closed hearing.
The arrests came weeks after a 19-year-old Afghan citizen living in Germany allegedly stabbed two US tourists at Amsterdam’s main railway station in what prosecutors described as an attack with an extremist motive.
The Dutch anti-terror coordinator’s office said in a tweet on Thursday that the allegedly foiled plot fit the current threat profile for the Netherlands, which is at four on a scale that tops out at five.
The office did not raise the level following the arrests.
“Jihad networks are also active in the Netherlands with the intention to plot attacks in Europe,” the office said. “Today’s arrests must be seen in that light.”
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