3 Held in Alleged Plot Against Allawi

German police Friday arrested three Iraqis suspected of hastily putting together a failed plot to assassinate interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi during his visit for talks with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

German Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm said the suspects were believed to be members of Ansar al Islam, a militant organization responsible for attacks across Iraq. The threat against Allawi was not well conceived, authorities said, and security in Berlin for the visit had been extremely tight.

The arrests were made during early-morning raids in Augsburg, Stuttgart and Berlin after “indications of concrete terrorist activities,” Nehm said. The three men were Iraqi citizens, according to the prosecutor, who did not say how or when they entered Germany. The suspects had been under surveillance for months.

“Something was planned against the Iraqi prime minister,” Nehm said.

Authorities believe the men wanted to attack Allawi on Thursday evening, when he was to meet with Iraqi exiles in Berlin.

The meeting was canceled, Nehm said, because hours earlier police near Stuttgart had intercepted telephone calls that indicated a “hectic rush,” and the “suspicion of a planned attack increased.”

One of the suspects made what police called suspicious movements.

Speaking at a news conference, the prosecutor said authorities had canceled several events on Allawi’s two-day schedule.

“We have seen a considerable danger” for the Iraqi leader, Nehm said. He added that Schroeder was not targeted and that the plot “was not a long-planned action. It was rather an ad hoc decision.”

Helicopters circled overhead and police shut down streets throughout Berlin on Friday as Allawi’s entourage sped through the city. The color guard and ceremony that normally greet visiting heads of state were canceled before the prime minister’s meeting with Schroeder. Police searched two locations each in Berlin and Augsburg and five in Stuttgart.

When asked what police had discovered in the raids, Nehm said, “Nothing that indicates an attack, or anything that can be used for an attack.”

Allawi’s visit to Germany, where he requested reconstruction money and training for Iraqi forces, came as Baghdad prepares for a nationwide election in late January.

Extremist groups inside and outside Iraq have sought through violence to disrupt the polls and undermine the U.S.-backed government.

Allawi’s government is under pressure from some religious and political leaders in Iraq to postpone the election until violence subsides. But in a joint news conference with Schroeder, Allawi again suggested that the unrest should not delay voting.

“Contrary to what you might hear in the news, about 80% of the lands in Iraq are free of insurgents and terrorists,” he said. “We are trying to reach out to the various constituencies in the country to make sure the political process is going to be inclusive and that all Iraq will be represented in the political process.”

Ansar al Islam was founded in the Kurdish-controlled mountains along the Iranian border in northern Iraq. The group, which is believed to have ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist network, carried out suicide bombings before and during the Iraq war. Hundreds of Ansar fighters were killed in the U.S.-led invasion of the country last year, but the group’s remnants have reformed and are scattered across Iraq.

Some members are thought to have ties to the militant network led by Abu Musab Zarqawi, which is believed to have assassinated numerous Iraqi officials and civil servants.

In August, Zarqawi’s website threatened the Iraqi leader with the message: “Allawi, be sure that we only have the sword for you, whose thirst we’ll quench with your blood.”

Investigations into Ansar’s activities in Germany began in December 2003. Authorities estimate about 100 members are in the country and say their main interests have been raising money and smuggling and recruiting people from Europe to the Middle East.

Weeks before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, dozens of extremists from Germany, Italy, Yemen and other countries traveled to Iraq and joined Ansar.

Germany’s surveillance of suspected militants has intensified since Sept. 11, 2001, after which it was learned that several of the hijackers of the U.S. planes, including Mohamed Atta, had lived and studied together in Hamburg before moving to America.

Christian Retzlaff and Petra Falkenberg in The Times’ Berlin Bureau contributed to this report.