Germany raises al-Qaida suspicion in Tunisia blast; 16th victim dies in German hospital

AP | 4/18/02 | COLLEEN BARRY

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BERLIN, Apr 18, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Germany has for the first time raised the possibility that a truck bombing at a Tunisian synagogue that killed 16 people was an al-Qaida terrorist attack. If verified, the blast would be the first terror attack by Osama bin Laden's terror network since Sept. 11.

"We are considering all possibilities, but those that we must consider include al-Qaida structures," Interior Minister Otto Schily said on ARD television Wednesday.

Schily said he intends to travel to Tunisia this weekend to meet with investigators and President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, possibly on Monday.

The number of dead in the attack rose to 16 on Thursday with the death of a 15-year-old girl in the northern German city of Luebeck. Eleven of the dead were Germans.

Federal prosecutors this week detained a man in Germany who allegedly was phoned shortly before the blast by the suspected attacker. The suspect was freed Tuesday after prosecutors said they lacked sufficient evidence to hold him.

A German newspaper reported Wednesday that the alleged driver of the gas-laden truck that blew up at the Ghriba synagogue on the resort island of Djerba telephoned a contact in Germany shortly before the blast urging him to "pray for me."

German officials refused to comment on the report in the newspaper, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which expanded on the German strand of the investigation.

In the intercepted phone call, a man who investigators believe was Nizar Nawar, a 25-year-old Tunisian, spoke with a man living in Muelheim, Germany, the paper said.

Quoting from what it said was a transcript compiled by German authorities, the newspaper said the caller told the other man, identified only as Michael Christian G., "Don't forget to pray for me."

Tunisian officials told German investigators they found the German phone number in the memory of a mobile phone seized from an uncle of Nawar, Sueddeutsche Zeitung said, adding that the significance of the intercepted conversation became clear to German officials only after the blast.

The paper also said the conversation ended with the man in Germany asking, "Do you need something?" and the caller responding "I just need daawa" - which it interpreted as meaning "I just need the order" in Arabic.

However, such an exchange is a common way for Arabs, particularly Muslims, to end conversations, with "daawa" meaning an appeal for God's blessing for the other person.

By COLLEEN BARRY Associated Press Writer

Copyright 2002 Associated Press, All rights reserved

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With the video camera held by an amateur: The moment, in which the gas transporter before the Jewish synagog on Djerba explodes. (Bablefish translation)

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