UPDATE 1-Germany bans neo-Nazi group Combat 18, launches raids

Germany has banned the neo-Nazi group Combat 18 and raided the homes of its leading members across the country, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday.

Two hundred officers seized phones, laptops, weapon-related objects, clothing, and Nazi relics, the ministry said in a statement. Last year, Walter Luebcke, a senior local conservative politician known for pro-migrant views, was shot dead, and a man believed to be a far-right sympathizer was arrested on suspicion of murdering him.

Germany was also shocked when two people were shot dead last year near a synagogue in Halle in eastern Germany, while two years ago leaders of the neo-Nazi group NSU were convicted of killing immigrants in a spree that lasted years. "Today's ban gives a clear signal: right extremism and anti-Semitism have no place in our society," Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said in a statement.

"The terror attacks of the NSU, the terrible murder of Walter Luebckeand the act of terror in Halle last year have given us a brutal illustration of the real danger that right-wing extremism poses to our free society," he added. Combat 18 originated in Britain in the early 1990s. Regional interior ministers in Germany have been calling for a ban for at least a year.

The ministry said the group had been carrying out activities that contravened Germany's constitutional order. It is the 18th extreme-right group to have been banned there. World leaders including German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier gathered in Israel on Thursday to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp at Auschwitz.