Funny thing is, I actually SAW those guys in April or so!
According to one press report, the group of radicals changed locations quite often this year, and one of their locations was Langen.
In April, I was jogging at my usual route when I came across five very muslim looking joggers, two of them with the usual unkept "jihadi" beards, the rest not exactly clean shaven either.
It struck me as odd. There's a bunch of muslims (mostly turks) living in Langen, but fanatical muslims normally don't exercise in public.
Religious fanatics of all kind are not exactly the greatest sportsmen of all.
Next time I saw only three of the bunch in the fields, this time not jogging, but testing walkie talkies.
I considered reporting them, but on a second thought, I was thinking about the rampant PC and that it might get me into more trouble than it was worth.
A friend joked that I would have the next terrorist attack on my conscience for not reporting these types.
Around the same time, there was a very "unconspicious" van parked in an area nearby which just screamed "surveilance vehicle", but I thought these policemen might try to catch dope dealers selling pot to skater kids at the adjacent half-pipe.
Now it seems to me these were not Langen police, but rather BKA men shadowing those jihadi joggers.
Regarding the arrest, it is of course a politically timed action. The whole group was amateurish and the best thing they could have done with those chemicals is to blow themselves up trying to make a bomb. The stuff was too unstable for bombs in the scale they had planned. Also, BKA had allready swapped some of the 35% hydrogen peroxide solutions containers containers with more harmless 3% solutions as you use them in school labs. With that, they could have bleached their hair.
Apparently a good op by BKA and GSG-9, but the timing was political, to support our Interior ministers (SSchäuble or "Doctor Strangelove"
) campaign for more surveilance and curtailing of civil rights.
But if you look carefully, it actually proves that our intelligence comunity and security forces are capable of folding terrorist attacks with the existing legal framework.
But next time I see sinister jihadi looking figures doing suspicious stuff, I WILL report them...