Terror Hits Germany, Too

What investigators find particularly alarming is evidence in the suitcases establishing a direct connection to Lebanon. According to Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, there are some 900 Hezbollah members living in Germany. The agency says that Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon have in the past instructed its members not to engage in violence in Germany.

While German investigators have yet to draw a connection to Hezbollah or any specific group, including al-Qaeda,they are convinced that the Cologne plot was the work of an organized group. "My impression is that many people were involved in the background," Hanning said.

The disclosure of the planned attack, revealed by federal police on Friday, some three weeks after the bombs were discovered, has also sparked calls for tougher measures to fight terrorism. Some of the measures have been in discussion in parliament since the 9/11 attacks and are now gaining acceptance in light of the imminent threat of an attack in Germany.

Until now, police have not had access to files kept by the intelligence services and vice versa. Efforts to create a single federal data base on suspected terrorists has been held up over privacy concerns and echoes of state surveillance of citizens during the Nazi period and Communist government in former East Germany. But those concerns now seem to be taking a back seat to preventing terrorists from striking.

Another instrument that is gaining support is a massive expansion of video surveillance. By releasing images of the suspects captured on video, police were able to arrest one of the suspects the next day.

Speaking to reporters in Berlin on Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected a proposal to install armed marshals on German trains like the sky marshals that fly with airlines. But she said she expected the government to approve creating a central data base of terrorist suspects and praised the effectiveness of video surveillance. "With all probability it (video surveillance) led to the identification of one of the perpetrators," she said.