French anti-terrorism authorities have arrested two men -- a Moroccan and a German believed to be a top al-Qaeda recruiter -- as part of investigations of the Sept. 11 attacks and a deadly bombing at a Tunisian synagogue, judicial officials said on Thursday.
The officials said they believe the suspects -- Moroccan national Karim Mehdi and Christian Ganczarski of Germany -- each had links to a cell of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network operating in Hamburg, Germany that helped carry out the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mehdi, 34, was taken into custody on Sunday at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, the officials said on condition of anonymity. He had arrived from Germany, and had planned to leave for the island of La Reunion off southeastern Africa.
Under questioning, Mehdi said he was headed to the island to look for tourist sites to attack, along the lines of the October bombing on the Indonesian island of Bali that killed more than 200 people -- mostly foreign tourists, the officials said.
The arrest was the first in France since French anti-terrorism judges opened an investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington just a few weeks after they took place.
Mehdi is also believed to have had direct contacts with Ziad Jarrah, the suspected pilot of the hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, officials said.
Mehdi appeared before a judge Thursday and was placed under investigation -- one step short of being officially charged -- for alleged connection with a terrorist enterprise, officials said. He was being held in custody.
Three of the suicide hijackers who seized control of commercial airliners for the Sept. 11 attacks -- including the alleged ringleader, Mohammed Atta -- allegedly had ties to the Hamburg cell.
Ganczarski, 36, was apprehended on Monday, also at the Paris airport. He was to appear before an anti-terrorism judge in the coming days, the officials said.
Ganczarski allegedly had links to an April 2002 suicide bombing of a historic synagogue on Tunisia's tourist island of Djerba which killed 21 people, including 14 German tourists, the officials said.
German authorities allowed Ganczarski -- a suspected accomplice in the Djerba attack previously identified as Christian G. -- to leave the country in December because there was not sufficient evidence to arrest him, German officials said at the time.
French authorities said they believe he was a top recruiter for al-Qaeda in Germany.
Ganczarski was under investigation for suspected membership in a terrorist group after he was traced as the recipient of an intercepted phone call from Nizar Naouar, the leading suspect in the Djerba bombing who is believed to have died in the suicide mission.
Ganczarski was expected to be put under investigation -- one step short of being officially charged -- yesterday or today in connection with the French investigation into the Djerba attack, officials said.
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