Syrian refugees tackled and tied up suspected ISIS terrorist after he managed to give special forces the slip ‘while plotting to blow up airport’
The 22-year-old terror suspect was caught after police found 'several hundred grams of a dangerous explosive substance' in his apartment
A SYRIAN man suspected of plotting a jihadist bomb attack was captured by other refugees - after he eluded elite German cops for two days.
Jaber Albakr, 22, asked a Syrian man at a train station for a place to sleep after fleeing officers, so the man took him to his flat and immediately called the cops.
When German police arrived to arrest in Leipzig's Paunsdorf district they found his countrymen had tied him up after tricking him into thinking he was safe, reports .
Security had been stepped up at airports and train stations after Albakr went on the run Saturday, when police raided his apartment and found several hundred grams of "an explosive substance more dangerous than TNT.”
The police are keeping the brave refugee's identities secret for security reasons as they believe they could be targeted in revenge attacks.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s official spokesperson, Ulrike Demmer, said: "Our thanks and our recognition go out to the man from Syria who informed the police about the suspect's whereabouts."
"We've succeeded, really overjoyed: the terror suspect Albakr was arrested overnight in Leipzig," police said on Twitter on Monday.
Police had said that "even a small quantity" of the explosives uncovered "could have caused enormous damage".
Local media reported that the material was TATP, the homemade explosive that was used by jihadists in the Paris and Brussels attacks.
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Albakr was believed to have had internet contact with death cult ISIS, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported.
According to security sources quoted, he had built "a virtual bomb-making lab" in the flat in a communist-era housing block and was thought to have planned an attack against either one of Berlin's two airports or a transport hub in his home state of Saxony.
Acting on a tip-off from the domestic intelligence agency, police commandos had sought to swoop on the Syrian early Saturday at his apartment building in the eastern city of Chemnitz, about 85 kilometres from Leipzig.
But he narrowly evaded police, local media said.
Meanwhile, Albakr's Syrian flatmate has been formally remanded in custody as a suspected co-conspirator of a "serious act of violence" while two other of his associates, who had been detained earlier, have been released.
Police commandos on Sunday also raided the Chemnitz home of another suspected contact of Albakr, blasting open the door as they stormed the premises, and took away a man for questioning.
Spiegel said Albakr had entered Germany on February 18, 2015 and two weeks later filed a request for asylum, which was granted in June that year.
Germany has been on edge since two IS-claimed attacks in July -- an axe rampage on a train in Wuerzburg that injured five, and a suicide bombing in Ansbach in which 15 people were hurt.
The bloodshed has fuelled concerns over Germany's record influx of nearly 900,000 refugees and migrants last year.
Heightening public fears, German police say they have foiled a number of attacks this year.
In late September, police arrested a 16-year-old Syrian refugee in Cologne on suspicion he was planning a bombing in the name of IS.
A week earlier, they detained three men with forged Syrian passports who were believed to be a possible IS "sleeper cell" with links to those behind the November Paris attacks.
German authorities have urged the public not to confuse refugees with "terrorists", but have acknowledged that more jihadists may have entered the country among the asylum seekers who arrived last year.
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