Germany news: Police find arms depot near highway

Berlin state prosecutors have charged a 35-year-old German woman with supporting the terror organization "Islamic State" (IS).

The woman is accused of having traveled via Istanbul in Turkey to Syria in December 2014 to join the group there.

Prosecutors allege she followed her husband, who wanted to fight for the extremist group.

They said she had lived with him in the Syrian town of Manbij, where she supported his IS activities.

After leaving the town in February 2015 and separating from her husband, she is said to have lived in IS-run women's accommodation.

During this time, she allegedly convinced a female friend in Berlin to come to Syria to support IS. The friend is said to have later been killed fighting with the group.

The woman is also said to have declared her willingness to take part in suicide attacks.

After being captured by Kurdish armed forces in 2019 and spending some time in a camp near the border to Iraq, she allegedly escaped to Turkey with the aid of her ex-husband, living there under a false name until April 2026.

The woman was arrested at Berlin Airport in April this year upon her return to Germany.

Germany's Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is on his way to the US for a meeting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon.

Before setting off on his trip, Pistorius mentioned Germany's order of US-made F-35 stealth jets, which are set to replace the German Air Force's aging Tornado combat planes.

On Friday, he will visit the manufacturer of the planes, Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas, where the first of the aircraft will be officially handed over.

Pistorius said another focus of the talks could be plans to make guided missiles for the Patriot air defense system in Germany.

The German government also intends to buy Tomahawk cruise missiles in the US, having reached a preliminary agreement on a deal on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara in July.

Police have found a cache of weapons and ammunition near a major country road in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate but no clues as to who put it there or why.

The depot contained several rifles, shotguns and pistols, in addition to a submachine gun, a flare gun and several thousands of rounds for various weapons, police in Ludwigshafen said.

The find was made near a car park on a road in Speyer on Monday, they said.

The DW newsroom in Bonn welcomes its readers to its rundown of headline stories from Germany as summer brings what may be a last bout of warm weather before the season ends.  

We will be looking at a mysterious firearms find by police in western Germany, and at the US trip of Defense Minister Boris Pistorius at a time of some tension between Washington and Berlin.

And as many raise concerns about the surge of the far right in Germany, a new poll has shown that the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) continues to be the strongest party in the country.

Read on here for this and more Germany content.