Two men released after terrorism suspects detained in Germany

Three men were detained in Germany on suspicion of plotting a crime that posed a threat to national security, police said on Friday.

Two of the suspects - two Syrians - were released during the course of the day, police said. One German national is still in custody. 

The men were detained in raids on Thursday evening in the cities of Hagen and Unna. 

Security sources told dpa that the men are suspected of having ideological links to the Islamic State terrorist group.

The domestic intelligence service in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia had been monitoring the men since the start of the year, the security sources said. 

The suspects had been under increasingly close surveillance because they had become further radicalized, and between themselves exchanged plans for an attack.

As the plans became more concrete, intelligence services shared their information with the police, who planned a pre-emptive arrest, dpa learnt.

North Rhine-Westphalia's interior minister, Herbert Reul, praised the services' cooperation on Friday, saying that the "security framework works when all the cogs mesh together." 

The men had "lost themselves in fantasies of carrying out attacks and believed they were invisible," he said.