Plot aimed to use model planes: police

Police have carried out raids in Germany and Belgium targeting an alleged Islamist plot by university aeronautics students to use remotely controlled planes for a terrorist attack. German authorities searched nine homes and properties in the Stuttgart and Munich areas, as well as in Saxony and Belgium. A spokesman for Germany’s Attorney-General said Tuesday the suspected plot involved the use of model planes fitted with explosives. Two Tunisians are suspected of “procuring information and objects to commit Islamic extremist explosive attacks with remote-controlled model airplanes,” prosecutors said. They were students in the aeronautics department at the university of Stuttgart, who were developing systems for using GPS to guide unpiloted aircraft. The raids also targeted the homes of four of their acquaintances, who are being investigated on suspicion of financing militant jihad. One acquaintance of the suspected plotters is under investigation for money laundering. No one has been arrested.