Suspects arrested in Germany over Paris attacks released

The local daily Aachener Zeitung said police had arrested the three and led them off in handcuffs in the town of Alsdorf, near Aachen.

Separately, police briefly sealed off Lower Saxony Stadium in Hannover (Niedersachsenstadion) where a friendly football match between Germany and the Netherlands was due to take place after a suspicious suitcase was found.

The police declined to give any information on the identity or nationality of the three individuals.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere also announced in a statement that it did not appear there was a “close connection” with the attacks in Paris at the moment.

Seven men were arrested in Belgium following the horrific attacks, which left129 people dead and hundreds injured.

Abdeslam was in Austria in September, telling police after arriving from Germany with two men that he was “on holiday”, Austrian authorities said Tuesday.

The two men, 27-year-old Mohammed Amri and 21-year-old Hamza Attouh, have been arrested in Belgium on terrorism charges.

Police forces across Europe have been on a massive manhunt looking for 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam – a brother to one of the suicide bombers in Paris.

French and other Western intelligence agencies face an urgent challenge to track down the surviving members of the three Islamic State units who inflicted the unprecedented bloodshed in France and, perhaps more importantly, to target their distant commanders in IS-controlled parts of Syria.

Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said at an European Union meeting in Brussels that his country expects assistance from other European Union countries for military operations it is carrying out in Syria and elsewhere.