Germans arrest London linked terror suspects

German police today arrested 11 members of an extremist Islamic group on suspicion they were planning terrorist attacks.

The suspects were being questioned by police, the federal prosecutor’s office said.

One was identified as a 36-year-old Palestinian living in Essen.

The suspects are believed to be part of a Sunni-Palestinian group known as al Tawhid, which prosecutors said they considered a terrorist organisation. Al Tawhid’s European base is London, the prosecutor’s office said.

The group’s German cell has been involved in providing false travel documents, collecting donations and arranging travel for ‘‘fighters,’’ the prosecutors said.

‘‘But there are also signs that this cell has begun to plan attacks in Germany.’’

Prosecutors said the group was centred around the man arrested in Essen, identified only as Yaser H. They called al Tawhid a fundamentalist Muslim organisation which wanted a worldwide jihad (holy war).

Germany’s hunt for suspected terrorists intensified after September 11 when it emerged that three of the suicide hijackers who led the attacks on New York and Washington had studied for years in Hamburg.

Police arrested the 11 in raids across the country, searching apartments in several cities and seizing computers, material used to falsify passports and other documents, the statement continued.

The prosecutors ruled out any connection between the arrests and the recent attack at a synagogue in Tunisia that killed 16 people, most of them Germans.