ARAB-EUROPEAN - Jan 23 - German Captives Part Of Iraq Terror Network.

The head of the Essen-based institute for terrorism research and security policy Rolf Tophoven, says two alleged Al Qaeda arrested members are part of a loose network of terrorists using Germany as a base to prepare for suicide attacks in Iraq. He said: There is a clear pattern, that links Germany with Iraq". In recent months, police have raided houses throughout Germany and made dozens of arrests of alleged terrorists involved in forging passports and raising funds via fraud. Intelligence sources say the detainees may have smuggled hundreds of suicide bombers into Iraq. Yet politicians said the arrests also proved that tougher security laws introduced soon after the 9/11, attacks in the US were taking effect. The two men were arrested under a new law allowing the detention of people suspected of membership of terrorist organisations outside Germany. In addition, several German regional states confirmed they intended to use a clause in an immigration law that came into force on Jan 1 to deport hundreds of alleged Islamists from Germany. The Jan 22 arrests, in Mainz and Bonn, showed Al Qaeda was using increasingly sophisticated methods to raise funds and prepare attacks, analysts said. One of those arrested, Ibrahim Mohammad K, a Mainz-based Iraqi national with German travel documents, is a central figure in recruiting suicide bombers from Germany for Iraq, according to Kay Nehm, chief federal prosecutor. The Iraqi, who has lived in Germany since 1997, is thought to have recruited the other arrested man, Yasser Abu S, a Libyan-born Palestinian medical student. The men organised five life insurance policies for Abu S worth 830,000 ($1.1m, [pounds sterling]580,000) which were to have been claimed after the Palestinian had faked his death in a road accident in Egypt. The money would have supported al-Qaeda's "holy war", Mr Nehm said. Mr Abu S was then to travel to Iraq to launch a suicide attack. Mr Mohammad K, who Mr Nehm said had had contact with Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, is also thought to have planned to obtain 48 grammes of nuclear-enriched uranium in Luxembourg that was to have been passed to al-Qaeda, although prior to the arrest no material had been obtained. The two men were on Monday presented to the federal criminal court in Karlsruhe. The German government was embarrassed after the September 11 attacks to discover that three of the pilots had been based in Hamburg. Since then German security authorities have tried to clamp down on alleged jihadists in Germany. Earlier this month police detained 22 alleged members of two Islamic terror cells involved in forging travel documents and using distortion and fraud to raise funds. Last December three men were arrested for allegedly planning to kill Iyad Allawi, Iraq's PM, during a visit to Berlin, and in May another Iraqi was arrested in Munich for fundraising and people-smuggling. There have also been setbacks. One of the alleged ringleaders of the terrorist bombing in Madrid last March had earlier lived undetected in Germany for several years, and prosecutors in Hamburg have failed to achieve uncontested guilty verdicts against two Moroccans in court for allegedly helping plan the September 11 attacks. Separately, German police in Nuremberg on Monday arrested Remzi Kartal, who is accused by Turkey of being a leading member of the outlawed PKK Kurdish organisation and of supporting terrorism.