Germany: 'Bomb plot' suspect on watch list for a long time - Saxony police

A 22-year-old Syrian man named Jaber Al-Bakr, suspected of planning a bomb plot, "has been on a watch list for a long time," police said in Chemnitz on Saturday.
"Yesterday we received a lead and we had to presume that a potential perpetrator or perpetrators could have proceeded from a planning phase to realisation. The lead came from law enforcement agencies, namely from the intelligence services because the person has been on a watch list for a long time," press spokesperson for the Saxony criminal investigation office, Tom Bernhardt, told journalists.
Earlier on Saturday, police arrested three suspects in connection with the bomb plot allegedly planned by Al-Bakr. Several residential blocks in the Fritz-Heckert neighborhood were evacuated in connection with the investigation. Parts of the city were cordoned off and civilians were evacuated as scores of police officers gathered at the scene.
Police say robotic devices searched the apartment and carried out a controlled explosion in order to enter the flat. "As a result of the search operation we managed to find traces of material which could have been used as explosives," Bernhardt said earlier.