German investigators are racing against the clock to track down additional terror suspects following the weekend arrest of a Lebanese student linked to a failed attempt to detonate bombs on commuter trains.

The suspect arrested, whom the federal prosecutor has identified only as Youssef Mohamad E.H., was charged on Sunday with membership in a terrorist organization, multiple counts of attempted murder and consipiring to set off explosives. A second suspect is still at large.

404 Not Found

---

nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu) Investigators fear the second suspect, possibly acting with a larger group, is planning a repeat attack.

The arrests have rekindled years of inconclusive debate about national security. In a major shift, Germany's main political parties now seem ready to grant investigators greater access to files on suspected terrorists.

"Terrorism has reached us," August Hanning, Germany's deputy interior minister and former intelligence chief, told German television. "Terrorist attacks are also being prepared in Germany. We have to assume that this will happen in the future."

Police scored a major coup with the arrest of the 21-year-old Lebanese suspect on Saturday at the Kiel central station. The day before, Germany's Federal Crime Police, the equivalent of the FBI, set a reward of 50,000 euros for information leading to the capture of two young men, caught on video pulling suitcases through the Cologne train station the afternoon of July 31.

In the suitcases were crude homemade bombs using propane gas cartridges and detonators made from battery-operated alarm clocks. The men placed the bombs on trains bound for Dortmund and Koblenz. The plan, say police, was to set off the bombs simultaneously as the trains arrived at their destinations. The alarm clocks went off as planned at 2:30 pm local time, but the mechanism failed to detonate the bombs.

Police said the man arrested in Kiel is linked to the suitcases through DNA evidence and video footage taken on July 31 at the Cologne train station. Investigators say they have no further information about the identity or whereabouts of the second suspect.

According to an unconfirmed report on Monday on Germany's ARD public television, German authorities received a tip from Lebanese intelligence that led to the arrest of the suspect. After seeing his picture on German television, the student called his family in Lebanon. The conversation was monitored by Lebanese intelligence, who alerted Germany.

What investigators find particularly alarming is evidence in the suitcases establishing a direct connection to Lebanon. According to Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, there are some 900 Hezbollah members living in Germany. The agency says that Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon have in the past instructed its members not to engage in violence in Germany.

While German investigators have yet to draw a connection to Hezbollah or any specific group, including al-Qaeda,they are convinced that the Cologne plot was the work of an organized group. "My impression is that many people were involved in the background," Hanning said.

The disclosure of the planned attack, revealed by federal police on Friday, some three weeks after the bombs were discovered, has also sparked calls for tougher measures to fight terrorism. Some of the measures have been in discussion in parliament since the 9/11 attacks and are now gaining acceptance in light of the imminent threat of an attack in Germany.

Until now, police have not had access to files kept by the intelligence services and vice versa. Efforts to create a single federal data base on suspected terrorists has been held up over privacy concerns and echoes of state surveillance of citizens during the Nazi period and Communist government in former East Germany. But those concerns now seem to be taking a back seat to preventing terrorists from striking.

Another instrument that is gaining support is a massive expansion of video surveillance. By releasing images of the suspects captured on video, police were able to arrest one of the suspects the next day.

Speaking to reporters in Berlin on Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected a proposal to install armed marshals on German trains like the sky marshals that fly with airlines. But she said she expected the government to approve creating a central data base of terrorist suspects and praised the effectiveness of video surveillance. "With all probability it (video surveillance) led to the identification of one of the perpetrators," she said.

• WILLIAM BOSTON | Berlin
• An arrest re-opens debate about surveillance