Three minors arrested in Germany accused of planning an "Islamist attack"

Police in Germany arrested three minors suspected of preparing an Islamist attack, two girls and a teenager, the public prosecutor's office in Düsseldorf, in the west of the country, announced Friday.

The arrests took place over the Easter weekend (30-31 March).

Arrest warrants were issued for three young people, two girls aged 15 and 16 and a 15-year-old boy, from North Rhine-Westphalia in northwestern Germany, suspected of having "planned a terrorist attack with Islamist motivations and acknowledged readiness to commit it," the Düsseldorf prosecutor's office said in a statement.

"Due to the age of the suspects and the fact that the investigation is still ongoing," the prosecutor's office did not elaborate on what kind of attack they were preparing.

According to Bild newspaper, the teenagers planned to attack police and churches with knives and Molotov cocktails in the name of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS), also known as Daesh.

"They contemplated getting firearms," the newspaper said.

In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, conducted just after the attack in Moscow at the end of March, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser stressed that "the danger of Islamist terrorism remains high" in Germany.

According to her, "the greatest Islamist threat in Germany comes from the Islamic State of Khorasan", a branch of the IS group that operates in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The attack on the Crocus City Hall concert hall in Moscow, which left 144 people dead, was claimed by the group.

The German authorities have stepped up their vigilance because the country is hosting this year's European Football Championship from 14 June to 14 July.

In recent months, two German police operations led to the arrest of five suspected bombers, allegedly members of the organisation.