German authorities think they “have thwarted an Islamic attack,” and a married couple have been arrested in a town near Frankfurt in connection with the case, the interior minister for the German state of Hesse told reporters Thursday.
The official didn’t provide details about the alleged plot, but German media are reporting that a man and a woman were arrested on suspicion of planning a bomb attack on a bicycle road race that is slated to run near Frankfurt on Friday.
The couple were arrested in Oberursel, a town near Frankfurt in west-central Germany, said Peter Beuth, interior minister for Hesse.
“We suspect that there was a Salafist background,” Beuth said, referring to ultra-fundamentalist interpretations of Islam. “Police investigations at this stage indicate that we have thwarted an Islamist attack.”