Israel holding German who planned suicide attack

Israel's security services arrested a German "terrorist" a month ago for planning a suicide attack in Israel, Israel TV reported on Wednesday.

The Israeli secret service, the Shin Bet, and the police detained 26 year-old Stefan Josef Smirak, a convert to Islam, on his arrival at Ben Gurion Airport.

He arrived at a Hezbollah training camp in Lebanon four months ago and after three months of training, he returned to Europe, before going to Israel.

"In his interrogation, he said he had planned to find an appropriate place to carry out a suicide attack in Haifa or in Tel Aviv," the television said.

"After locating the spot, he was to leave Israel for Turkey where he was to receive orders for the attack from his handlers." His trial is to begin in Tel Aviv on Thursday, it said.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.