'Terror-Financing' Raids in Germany Target Chechen Suspects

German police on Tuesday raided apartments across five states in a probe against 14 Chechen asylum seekers over suspected financing of terrorist groups and links to the Islamic State organization.

The raids were part of a running investigation which began last year into a 28-year-old Russian of Chechen origin who is suspected of "preparing an act of violence against the state."

The suspect was believed to have been planning to join IS jihadists in their battle in Syria.

Police said no arrests were made Tuesday but that 10 other men and three women were now under suspicion over their role in "terror financing."

Tuesday's raids targeted 12 apartments as well as a shelter for asylum seekers in the eastern states of Thueringen and Saxony, as well as Hamburg in the north, North Rhine-Westphalia in the west and Bavaria in the south.

Police said there was "no concrete danger of an attack."

Germany has so far been spared large-scale jihadist attacks.

But Europe's biggest economic power has been shaken by two assaults claimed by the IS and carried out by Syrian asylum seekers -- an ax rampage on a train in Wuerzburg that injured five, and a suicide bombing in Ansbach in which 15 people were hurt. 

Police said this month they had foiled an alleged plot by a Syrian refugee to bomb one of Berlin's airports.

The cases have fueled anxiety over Germany's record influx of nearly 900,000 asylum seekers in 2015.