A cache of weapons that were supposed to be used for attacks on Jewish religious buildings in Germany has been discovered in Bulgaria, the German newspaper "Spiegel" reported.
"In the southern part of Bulgaria, weapons and ammunition were found in an underground warehouse, which were probably to be used for Hamas attacks against Jewish sites in Germany, mainly in Berlin," the publication reported, citing sources from the Federal Criminal Police Service .
Some of the weapons are partially unusable due to rust.
The information about the arms cache was obtained by analyzing the mobile phone of one of the four Palestinians arrested in Berlin and the Netherlands last December. They are suspected of preparing caches of weapons intended for terrorist attacks at the behest of Hamas in Europe.
The persons are Palestinians Abdelhamid Al A. (45) and Ibrahim El-R. (41), both born in Lebanon, 34-year-old Egyptian Mohamed B. and 56-year-old Dutch citizen Nazih R.
In the middle of December, the German service found photos of several pistols, magazines and other parts of weapons in the mobile phone of one of the arrested.
Digital traces of the photographs lead investigators to a location in southern Bulgaria where the firearm was "buried in a bag under a tree".
There are doubts that similar warehouses are also prepared in Poland. Several of the suspects are said to have traveled there multiple times. However, the information about such caches in Poland has not yet been confirmed.
No firearms were seized from the suspects during the December arrests. However, the discovery in Bulgaria shows that the terrorist organization has caches of weapons in Europe.
German and European prosecutors have been tipped off by Israeli intelligence about suspected terrorist plans by members of Hamas's militant wing. /BGNES
