(Aired on NPR Newscasts, 26Sep2008)
Police arrested a 23-year-old Somali man and a 24-year-old German citizen born in the Somali capital of Mogadishu after storming a KLM airliner bound for Amsterdam.
German police said in a published report there was no indication the two men were about to launch an attack, and the plane continued its flight to the Netherlands after an hour delay.
A police spokeswoman told the Associated Press that the authorities did not think the men planned to hijack that specific flight, but would not say whether the men were armed. Reports in Germany say the two men were observation by police for months, and that a suicide note was found in the suspects’ apartment saying the men wanted to die for the “jihad” or “holy war.”
For NPR News, I’m Tony Ganzer in Bonn, Germany.