2 Terror Suspects Arrested on KLM Airplane En Route to Amsterdam

PASSAU, Germany, Sept. 26, 2008 — -- KLM flight 1804 from Cologne to Amsterdam was sitting on the tarmac at Cologne's airport as crew members prepared for departure when SEK, Germany's special police, entered the plane and arrested two passengers suspected of planning terrorist attacks.

It was 6:55 a.m. and the Dutch airplane was only 10 minutes away from its scheduled takeoff when a 23-year-old Somali man and a 24-year-old German national, who was born in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, were arrested and detained by the special commando unit.

Frank Scheulen, spokesman for LKA (state police) in Düsseldorf, Germany, confirmed that the arrest had taken place "after the suspects had been under surveillance by anti-terrorist police for months."

The spokesman confirmed that two farewell letters were found in their apartment indicating they wanted to join the "Holy War Jihad and they were ready to die."

It is not clear why the police let the men board the airplane and the spokesman could not elaborate on that detail, but he told ABC News, "The arrest itself was quite unspectacular. The men are being questioned now for suspected terrorist activities."

Meanwhile Germany went public Thursday in its search for two men linked to a group of terrorist suspects whose alleged plot to blow up American targets in Germany was foiled last year.

Eric Breininger, 21, and Houssain Al Malla, 23, are believed to have been training at a terrorist camp in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Both men are suspected of membership in a foreign terrorist organization with close ties to al Qaeda and have been under investigation "for a long time," according to a federal prosecutor's spokesman.

German authorities had issued an arrest warrant for the pair in April but had not released their names.

The police went public Thursday amid suspicions the two men might be on their way back to Germany.