Federal Investigators Raid Islamists' Homes

In Germany’s biggest ever raid against radical Islamists, more than 5,500 policemen on Thursday searched hundreds of homes in all but three states and arrested an unspecified number of alleged members of the banned “caliphate state.” Federal Crime Agency officials said they suspected that more than 1,000 followers of the group were still active despite the ban, issued in Dec. 2001. Officers also searched the home of the Cologne-based organization’s leader, Metin Kaplan, known as the “caliph of Cologne.” Kaplan, who opposes Turkey’s separation of religion and state, was sentenced to four years in prison by a German court in 2000 for publicly calling for the murder of a rival religious leader. The German government has been trying to deport him since his release last May.