Al-Qaeda suspect held in Germany

The Moroccan-born man was detained by police from Hamburg - the city where al-Qaeda planned the 9/11 attacks.

The man, named only as Redouane EH, 36, is accused of having ties to a suspected key 9/11 planner who fled Germany a week before the attacks.

Federal prosecutors also accuse Redouane EH of recruiting al-Qaeda suicide bombers in Iraq.

"He is strongly suspected of recruiting militants for the foreign terrorist organisation al-Qaeda in order to carry out suicide bomb attacks in Iraq and of supporting it with monetary payments," a prosecutors' statement said.

The statement also says he has "numerous contacts with an international network of Jihadists" in Syria, Algeria, Iraq and elsewhere.

"At the end of November 2005, he completed explosives training at a camp operated by a terrorist network in Algeria," the statement said.

He aroused the suspicion of the authorities partly though conversations he had in internet chat rooms, the statement said.

Message-carrier

Redouane EH is not accused of any involvement in the 9/11 plot, prosecutors say.

But he is believed to have carried messages for Said Bahaji, a suspected key member of the Hamburg cell, who fled Germany shortly before the 9/11 attacks and remains at large.

Mr Bahaji has been charged in his absence in connection with several thousand murders committed in the attacks.

Prosecutors say they believe Redouane EH was ferrying messages between Mr Bahaji and his wife, who still lives in Hamburg.

Redouane EH was detained in the northern city of Kiel, where a number of properties were searched as part of the operation.

Prosecutors say there is no evidence Redouane EH was planning any attacks within Germany.

But a spokeswoman said he was detained after prosecutors believed he might have been planning to leave Germany.