Image copyright APAn anti-terror alert that gripped Germany ended with the capture of a Syrian suspect – but only after he had slipped away from elite commandos.
Syrian refugee Jaber al-Bakr, 22, is suspected of links with so-called Islamic State. Police seized powerful explosives at the flat where he had been staying in Chemnitz, eastern Germany.
German media say Mr Bakr may have been targeting an airport in Berlin.
Late on Sunday night, anti-terror commandos from the SEK unit and a bomb squad rushed to a block of flats in Leipzig and captured Mr Bakr there at 00:42 (22:42 GMT).
He was in the apartment of a fellow Syrian, in the city"s Paunsdorf district. Police swooped on the flat and found Mr Bakr tied up on the floor. They had received a call from the other Syrian, who had heard about the manhunt, investigators said.
It is not clear how Mr Bakr was overpowered.
He had approached the other Syrian at Leipzig"s main railway station and asked him if he could sleep at his apartment, German media report.
Mr Bakr, registered as a Syrian refugee in June 2015, is suspected of plotting a major terrorist attack in Germany.
He had entered Germany illegally in February 2015. According to his Syrian passport, he was born in a Damascus suburb in January 1994.
The German news website Der Spiegel says German intelligence had reports last week that he might be planning such an attack, and they alerted police in the eastern state of Saxony.
The intelligence service found out on Thursday that he had used the internet to get bomb-making instructions and had obtained explosives.
On Friday anti-terror police began watching an apartment in a run-down residential area of Chemnitz, called Fritz Heckert. They were preparing to storm it when Mr Bakr managed to slip away at 07:04 on Saturday morning.
A Saxony police report said the police fired a warning shot but failed to stop him. It is not clear whether the suspect had fled after noticing the surveillance.
A witness in the block of flats, Stefan Breitsprecher, told the BBC: "I saw police officers with ladders… and then there was a loud bang, so heavy that the eighth floor was vibrating."
In the Chemnitz apartment, police found several hundred grams of "highly volatile" explosives, reportedly more dangerous even than TNT.
About 100 people had to evacuate, and police then detonated the explosives safely nearby after placing them in holes in the earth.
During a nationwide manhunt, police arrested three suspects at Chemnitz railway station on Saturday. One of them remains in custody – the man who was renting the apartment.
Extra security checks were mounted at railway stations and airports.
The German broadcaster ARD says German authorities got their first tip-off about Mr Bakr from foreign intelligence sources about two weeks ago.
The hunt led to Leipzig"s Paunsdorf district, some 68km (42 miles) from Chemnitz, on Sunday night.
Germany"s Tag24.de news website says the SEK commandos and bomb squad were supported by a helicopter, which used a searchlight to illuminate the area.
"Tired but overjoyed: we captured the terror suspect last night in Leipzig," the police said in a tweet.
The so-called Islamic State said it had inspired two terror attacks in Bavaria, southern Germany, in July.
A Syrian man wounded 15 people when he blew himself up at a music festival in the town of Ansbach. A few days earlier, a teenager attacked passengers on a train with an axe, wounding five people.
Jaber al-Bakr: How Germany caught elusive Syrian "bomb-maker"
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