EVENT

Yesterday (6 May), German police arrested three men and a woman during counter-terrorism operations in the federal states of Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Saxony, and Rhineland-Palatinate.

An investigator carries seized items from the apartment of a man suspected of being a member of a right-wing extremist group in Augsburg, Germany, 6 May 2015. (PA)

According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), police searched nine properties. Prosecutors claimed that the suspects had set up a new right-wing extremist militant group named “Old Schools Society” in 2014. The prosecutors alleged that the cell was plotting to launch attacks on mosques, assets related to Salafist Muslims, and shelters for asylum seekers. “Pyrotechnics with large explosive power” were seized during the police operations, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. Attacks on migrant and Muslim assets in Germany occurred on 11 December 2014 when alleged right-wing extremists set fire to three buildings that were being renovated to house asylum seekers in Bavaria.