Of all the terror plots we’ve seen uncovered in the past two years, this German one looks like the most serious by far.

Details via Diane, who has the BBC report.

But consider this from the NY Times’ report:

American military officials said German authorities had contacted them on Tuesday evening to warn them about the plot. They did not have further information about the threat to Ramstein, the largest American air base here and a transportation hub for troops deploying to Iraq.

“This was a German-led investigation,” Lt. Cmdr. Corey Barker, a spokesman for the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, said. “We do appreciate their commitment to safeguarding us against a terrorist attack.”

Frankfurt’s airport, the second busiest in continental Europe after Charles de Gaulle in Paris, was operating normally this morning, said a spokesman for the airport authority, Fraport.

Germany narrowly missed a terrorist attack last summer, when a pair of suitcase bombs left on commuter trains failed to explode.

Earlier this summer, senior German security officials warned that the terrorist threat here was similar to that in the months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. That plot was largely hatched in Hamburg by a circle of Islamic militants posing as students.

The warnings have prompted a debate here over whether Germany should tighten its antiterrorism measures — for example, by allowing clandestine searches of computer hard drives belonging to suspected terrorists.

The debate has been particularly fierce because of Germany’s deep aversion since World War II to tactics that threaten individual liberties.

So the police broke it up. Without massive violations of civil liberties. And without US intel support, FISA courts or the help of David Addington’s twisted legal excuses.

Update: Via CNN, it’s claimed US officials have been involved all along. But there’s inconsistencies in their statements:

Schaeuble said he had “no knowledge of any link” with the Danish arrests of eight suspected Islamic militants accused of storing explosives in a populated area of Copenhagen with the intent of carrying out a terror attack.

But the German interior minister added there was “a strong parallel” between the two investigations and subsequent arrests.

A U.S. government official who did not want to be named called the German terror plot “the real deal,” adding that U.S. authorities “have been working this case real hard.”

The arrests in Germany are linked to a threat first reported several months ago, sources said.

The United States has been working with the Germans since the “earliest stages of the investigation” which has been tracked by the Germans for some time, according to a U.S. counterterrorism official.

The FBI will be seeing if there are any U.S. connections to these men, the U.S. government official said.

When asked about whether the United States was aware of the alleged German plots, Knocke said, “We have very close ties with our German counterparts” but did not elaborate on specific plots.

“We have met repeatedly with our German counterparts on a variety of security measures and consider them to be among our most important allies,” the DHS spokesman said.

So they claim they were involved all along, yet just now the FBI’s looking for US connections? Sounds like bullshit. Smells like bullshit.

Give the Germans credit for locating, tracking and stopping these attackers. The claim of US involvement is just standard CYA propaganda.