Germany Raises Al-Qaida Suspicion in Tunisia Blast, Newspaper Report Details Phone Call by Suspect
By Tony Czuczka Associated Press Writer
Published: Apr 17, 2002
BERLIN (AP) - Germany raised the possibility Wednesday that a truck bombing at a Tunisian synagogue that killed 15 people, most of them Germans, was an al-Qaida terrorist attack.
Although German officials have said there were indications that the blast was a terrorist attack, it was the first time the government suggested a link to Osama bin Laden's network, accused of being behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
If verified, that would make the blast at the Tunisian synagogue the first terror attack by al-Qaida 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.
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."
Federal prosecutors 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.
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.
On Monday, the London-based Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi said it had received a claim of responsibility for the Djerba explosion said to have been left by truck driver, identified as Nizar Nawar."
"We believe that the person whose name is associated with the claim of responsibility is the alleged attacker," Frauke Scheuten, a spokeswoman for German federal prosecutors, said Wednesday.
Relatives of Nawar speaking from near Lyon, France, said they were shocked at his alleged connection to the explosion and hadn't heard from him in weeks.
Meanwhile, the Federal Criminal Office - Germany's equivalent of the FBI - issued a rare public statement that an anonymous letter in Arabic headed "Al-Qaida, Tunisian Division" was received by the German embassy in Tunis on Jan. 2.
It threatened that "German products" would be "burned and poisoned" and that power lines and trains would be disrupted unless Germany cuts ties with Israel and leaves "the club of colonialism."
The Federal Criminal Office said it concluded that while an al-Qaida link could not be ruled out, the letter more likely was a copycat threat by Islamic militants in Tunisia.
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