Dutch police charge two with suicide bomb plot

THE HAGUE — Dutch police have charged two suspected terrorists with planning a terror attack using suicide and car bombs, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

The two men aged 20 and 34 years from Zoetemeer, near The Hague, were arrested on Monday, the federal prosecution service said in a statement.

"The attack with bomb jackets and one or more car bombs was probably to have been committed in The Netherlands at the end of the year," it said.

No firearms or explosives were found but undercover police were able to "gain insight into the suspects and their plans for an attack".

Police started surveillance on the men after an alert from the Dutch intelligence service said they "intended to commit a terrorist attack".

The target remained unknown, police said.

Police found a throwing axe, a dagger and a mobile phone with SIM cards in the attic of one of the men.

The Netherlands has seen a series of terror attacks and plots, although not so far on the scale of those in other European countries.

In March four people were killed when a Turkish-born man opened fire on a tram in the city of Utrecht.

Earlier this month a Pakistani man was sentenced to 10 years in jail for a plot to kill far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders.