Berlin police issued a statement on Wednesday saying they had confiscated weapons and a substantial amount of ammunition in connection with an Islamist extremist network. The authorities have also taken a 40-year-old German citizen into custody.

The raids in four different locations in the Reinickendorf and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf areas came after several months of investigation, police said. No concrete plans for an attack were known to authorities, but they acted preemptively so the weapons could not be used in an attack.

The suspect is alleged to have had in his position both civilian and military weapons, and is expected to appear before a Berlin court later on Wednesday. Police said he had exhibited an "increasing willingness to commit violence."

Later, police spokesman Winfrid Wenzel clarified that officers found handguns, rifles and 20 to 30 cases of ammunition during the raids, and that the suspect was a regular at mosques of "particular interest" to authorities. Wenzel added that the man "might have been pursuing an idea" to launch an attack, or been planning to give them to others who were.

es/se (AP, AFP)