In a massive operation, German police raided nearly 1,200 apartments of suspected Islamic freakazoids today: Germans Raid Suspected Militant Sites.

The nationwide sweep was aimed against members of Caliphate State, a group seeking the overthrow of Turkey’s secular government that Germany outlawed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Federal Criminal Office said.

Police searched nearly 1,200 apartments in 13 of Germany’s 16 states in pre-dawn raids, including the home of Caliphate State leader Muhammed Metin Kaplan, said Christian Brockert, a spokesman for the anti-crime agency.

Raids in Cologne, Braunschweig and Peine were part of an investigation into four former Caliphate State members in Germany suspected of planning terror attacks on as yet unspecified targets, federal prosecutors said.

The raids were launched because Caliphate State members were violating the German government’s December 2001 order to disband the group, Interior Minister Otto Schily said.

The searches were aimed at subscribers of the group’s underground newsletter, Brockert said.

“Muhammed Metin Kaplan?”