Syrian behind bars: He plans attack on German soldiers in Bavaria with machete

A Syrian is suspected of having planned a machete attack on German soldiers during his lunch break from a barracks in Bavaria, which is about an hour away from two major US military bases, the Munich public prosecutor's office said on Friday.

He was arrested on Thursday in Hof, where the Bundeswehr's Upper Franconia barracks are located. Around 550 soldiers are housed there, as well as the Central Investigation Office for Technical Reconnaissance, where the Bundeswehr is developing new electromagnetic surveillance technology.

The city in the extreme northeast of Bavaria, near the Czech border, is located in an administrative region that borders the US training area Grafenwöhr and the US base Vilseck.

The 27-year-old, whose identity could not be established due to German data protection law, is still in police custody. The formal charge against him is that he is preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state.

He had obtained two machetes and planned to attack soldiers during their lunch break in downtown Hof in order to stir up fear and terror among the population, authorities said in a statement.

When asked whether there was any indication of a threat to the US troops stationed in the region, American military officials in Bavaria initially did not respond.

The arrest came immediately after recent violence in other parts of Germany.

Last week, an 18-year-old Austrian with Bosnian roots, who police said had Islamist links, fired several shots at the Israeli Consulate General in Munich. He was killed in a shootout with police.

On August 23, a knife attack at a festival in Solingen in the west-central-western state of North Rhine-Westphalia left three dead and eight injured. German authorities linked the suspect, also a Syrian, to “radical Islamist beliefs.”