3 held for plotting attack on US sites

8220;They were planning massive attacks,8221; the German federal prosecutor, Monika Harms, said at a news conference, outlining a vast six-month investigation. She said that the suspects had amassed huge amounts of hydrogen peroxide, the main chemical used to manufacture the explosives used in the suicide bombings in London in July 2005.

Harms said the two German suspects were converts to Islam who had trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan. They had 1,500 pounds of hydrogen peroxide to make explosives, which they had hidden and were preparing to move when they were arrested on Tuesday afternoon. Officials said they also had military-grade detonators. German and American officials said that such indicators made them suspect connections to al-Qaeda.

8220;This would have enabled them to make bombs with more explosive power than the ones used in the London and Madrid bombings,8221; Jouml;rg Ziercke, head of the German Federal Crime Office, said, calling the links to al-Qaeda 8220;close8221;. German officials were visibly relieved by the arrests, which they said were the fruits of a six-month investigation involving 300 people from the police and prosecutor8217;s office. On Wednesday, police officers raided 41 houses and apartments across Germany, seizing computers and other evidence.

One of the suspects, Fritz Gelowicz, a 28-year-old German born in Munich, was under surveillance by German investigators as early as December 2006, after he was seen scouting US military barracks in Hanau as a possible bombing target, according to court documents.

The arrests were made at a vacation home in Oberschledorn, a remote village in north of Frankfurt. The suspects had rented the house to store chemicals to make explosives, officials said, and were preparing to leave when security forces swooped in.

One of the three men fled and, in a scuffle with a policeman, wrested a pistol from his holster and shot him in the hand before he was subdued.