UPDATE: The men have been caught and they are Chechens.

Via ITB this from Reuters:

Three Chechen men who were overheard at a bus stop talking about becoming “heroes before Allah” were detained and questioned on Friday after sparking a major security alert in Germany, but police said they did not appear to have been planning an attack.

Hamburg police said the men, aged from 21 to 25, had been found after a manhunt in which more than 1,000 officers had thrown up overnight roadblocks and scoured GermanyÂ’s second city.

Hamburg police chief Reinhard Chedor told a news conference: “At the moment I don’t believe there were any concrete attack plans.” He said the men were being held for further questioning and declined to give further details.

Elections are coming up in Germany and Schroedder is trailing in the polls. Now is the time to get tough on terrorists. Notice the Clintonian policy of not starting a manhunt for the terrorists because police didn't want to interfere in a criminal investigation. Treating terrorism as common act of criminality is what gave us 9/11. Also, recall that Hamburg was at the center of the 9/11 plot. Radical Islamists roots run deep in that city.

LA Times:

More than 1,000 police officers were deployed Thursday to search for three suspected terrorists, a police spokesman said.

Roadblocks and controls were set up at 12 points in this northern port city after an Arabic-speaking witness overheard the men praising Allah and heroism Wednesday at a bus stop. One was carrying a backpack.

Police said the three men had been recorded by video surveillance cameras and their pictures would be released.

"We don't know at this point whether there is something to the tip or not," Hamburg state Interior Minister Udo Nagel said at a news conference. There were no concrete clues about any attack, he said.

The witness told police he heard one of the men use the phrase "heroism before Allah." The men then boarded a bus.

A police official said the launch of the search and release of information was delayed a day because the police did not want to jeopardize their initial criminal investigation.

Posted by: Rusty at 08:32 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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