BERLIN (AFP)--Germany fears an Islamist group that claimed it was trying to bomb U.S. interests in the country in September is hatching a new plot, Deputy Interior Minister August Hanning said Wednesday.

The Islamic Jihad Union, a group with roots in Uzbekistan and links to Al- Qaida, said that three men arrested in Germany in September had been ordered to attack the U.S. military airbase in Ramstein and U.S. and Uzbek consulates in Germany.

Large quantities of a chemical that can be used to make bombs were found at the house where the men were seized.

Hanning told AFP on the sidelines of a security conference in Berlin that the group claimed it would try again.

"We received a message on the Internet in early September from the Islamic Jihad Union saying 'We missed our target this time, but our brothers are going to try again'," Hanning said.

"We are trying to find out who is in Pakistan at the moment and who is being trained in camps to then return to Germany and carry out attacks," he said.

Hanning, a former head of the German foreign intelligence service, admitted that German authorities did not know for sure if there was a sleeper cell of the Islamic Jihad Union operating in Germany.

He said however that Germany "had the impression" that a new plot was being hatched "in Pakistan, by the same group linked to Al-Qaida."

A fourth suspect in the alleged plot in September was arrested in Turkey this month on an international arrest warrant.

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