German police arrest 2 terrorist suspects on plane

By Sabine Siebold

BERLIN (Reuters) - German police boarded a Dutch airliner at Cologne airport on Friday and arrested two men suspected of planning to take part in terrorist attacks.

Officials suspected the men were on their way to a terrorist camp or intended to wage holy war, or jihad, in eastern Africa, security sources told Reuters. They wanted to fly to Uganda from Amsterdam, the sources said.

A police spokesman identified the suspected Islamist militants, on board a KLM aircraft about to take off for Amsterdam, as a 23-year-old Somali and a 24-year-old German born in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

"It all went off in quite an unspectacular manner," a police spokesman told Reuters television.

Police in the North Rhine-Westphalia region of western Germany said they suspected the men were planning a violent form of jihad and had found farewell letters.

They declined to give further details or to say how they found out about the pair, on the grounds that a criminal case was pending.

Somalia is racked by a civil war between Islamist rebels and the Ethiopian-backed government. A large number of Somali refugees have moved to western Europe in 17 years of conflict.

"The origin of the (suspects) is not surprising because Somalia has for some time been a place where al Qaeda commandos stay and make preparations," said terrorist expert Rolf Tophoven.