German authorities arrested a suspected member of an Islamic fundamentalist organization after a raid on eight premises in the Hesse and Bavaria regions, the federal prosecutor's office said Thursday.
The suspect, identified as Samir K. and believed to be of Algerian nationality, was being brought before a federal judge Thursday, the statement said.
He is strongly suspected of belonging to an Islamic fundamentalist organization, four of whose members were arrested in the central Frankfurt region of Germany last December.
The suspects, who were in possession of firearms, chemicals suitable for use as explosives and homemade detonators, are believed to have been planning to mount a terrorist attack in Strasbourg, northeastern France around the turn of the new year.
The German swoop was organized in concert with Italian authorities investigating Islamic fundamentalists centered in Milan believed linked to the Frankfurt group, the German prosecutor said.
Italian police said Thursday that their anti-terrorist brigade had arrested five suspected members of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden's network who were planning attacks on the US embassy in Rome and in Strasbourg.
The four suspects arrested in Germany in December were previously identified as the presumed Algerian Aeurobui B., two presumed Iraqis, Hisham E. and Lamine M., and a Frenchman named Fouad S., but it was stressed that these could be false identities.
Those four have been in custody since their arrest.
In Wednesday's German operation, which involved members of the elite anti-terrorist police unit, the GSG 9, five premises around Frankfurt and three around Munich were searched.
Documents in Arabic were seized at the same time as Samir K. was arrested, the statement said -- KARLSRUHE, Germany (AFP)
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