German police have raided an apartment building in the eastern city of Chemnitz Saturday, Oct. 8, 2016 after receiving information someone may be planning a bombing attack. BERLIN -- German police searched nationwide Sunday for a 22-year-old Syrian man believed to have been preparing a bombing attack, who slipped through their fingers as they were closing in on him, and were questioning a second Syrian man on suspicion he was involved in the plot. The suspect remained on the run but three contacts were detained and being questioned, police said. He was the renter of the apartment that police raided in their search for the main suspect, Jaber Albakr from the Damascus area of Syria, Saxony police spokesman Tom Bernhardt told The Associated Press. The apartment was raided after local authorities received a tip-off from Germany’s domestic intelligence agency that the suspect might be there, and that he was thought to be planning a bomb attack. Saxony police put out an alert, identifying the suspect as 22-year-old Jaber Albakr from the Damascus area, and urging anyone with any information of his whereabouts to contact authorities. Two people who had "contacts" with Albakr were taken into custody near the Chemnitz train station and a third was found downtown, Bernhardt said, adding they were being questioned with the hope that they might help authorities find Albakr. He said experts were still trying to determine whether it was the same explosive used in the deadly Nov. 13 attacks in Paris and the March 22 attacks in Brussels known as TATP, or triacetone triperoxide. Authorities released no details about how long the suspect had been in Germany, and Bernhardt said it was unclear whether he had come in the huge wave of asylum-seekers in 2015. Germany has been on edge after suffering two attacks claimed by the Islamic State group (IS) in July — an axe rampage on a train in Wuerzburg that injured five and a suicide bombing in Ansbach that left 15 wounded. Two other attacks unrelated to Islamic extremism, including a deadly mall shooting in Munich, have also contributed to heightened fears.
After authorities in Chemnitz, Germany, uncover a suspected terrorist bombing plot, police seek the suspect.