HAMBURG, Aug 26: Three Chechen men who sparked a massive police search in the northern German city of Hamburg after being overheard allegedly planning an attack are in custody, authorities said on Friday.

Hamburg police chief Reinhard Chedor said one of the men was arrested and the other two had turned themselves in.

“I do not believe at the moment that there were any real plans for an attack,” Chedor told a press conference.

The men are aged from 21 to 25.

Chedor said he was convinced that the three were the suspects caught on film by a surveillance camera boarding a bus in Hamburg on Wednesday.

A witness said by police to be reliable had overheard the men talking about becoming martyrs. One had allegedly said: “Tomorrow we will be heroes for Allah”.

More than 1,000 police officers mounted an operation to set up road blocks and apartments and other buildings were searched.

The city’s interior minister Udo Nagel admitted that the size of the police operation was dictated by fears of attacks similar to those on three underground trains and a bus in London last month which killed 56 people, including the four suicide bombers.

Three of the suicide hijackers from the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States lived and studied in Hamburg.

Last week, a Moroccan national, Mounir el Motassadeq, was jailed by a court in the city for seven years for belonging to a terrorist organisation.

Motassadeq was a close friend of the suicide hijackers, including the ringleader of the attacks on New York and Washington, Mohammed Atta. —AFP