Germany detains Lebanese man for July bomb plot

KIEL, Germany, Aug 19 (Reuters) German police today detained a 21-year-old Lebanese man who they believe planted a makeshift bomb on a German train last month as part of a failed terrorism plot.

Federal prosecutor Monika Harms told reporters in Karlsruhe that the suspect had been seized in the early morning hours at a train station in the northern city of Kiel, where the man had been living and studying.

She said the suspect's fingerprints and DNA matched that taken from one of two abandoned suitcases that were discovered on July 31 on separate trains in the cities of Dortmund and Koblenz.

The suitcases contained crude bombs that police say were set to go off 10 minutes before the trains arrived in the two cities. The explosives failed to detonate, but if they had, police say they would have killed a ''high number'' of people.

Harms said the logistical sophistication of the plot suggested the suspect was part of a broader terrorist organisation.

The police are still looking for another man. Both suspects were caught on video boarding the trains with suitcases in Cologne. The video footage was put on the Internet on Friday to help the police with their manhunt.

''The second suspect is still at large,'' said Joerg Ziercke, president of the federal crime office (BKA), speaking at a news conference in Kiel. ''The danger is still out there.'' Police said yesterday that the bombs -- made with propane tanks, gasoline bottles and crude detonating devices -- may have been part of a plot designed to show anger over the West Asia crisis.

Along with the bomb materials, they found a bag of starch with Arabic print and a shopping list in Arabic for olives, bread and Lebanese yoghurt.

Chancellor Angela Merkel called the capture of the suspect a big success in the fight against terrorism and praised the quick work of German security forces.

Harms said the suspect would be brought before an federal investigating judge tomorrow.

The news comes a week after Britain said it had foiled a plot to blow up transatlantic aircraft and amid discussions in Germany about sending troops to Lebanon as part of a United Nations peace-keeping force.

It has been a wake-up call in a country where fears of terrorist attacks still rank well behind concerns over economic issues such as unemployment.

Germany has not suffered a major militant attack in recent years, although a cell including members of the group behind the Sept 11 attacks on the United States was based in the northern port city of Hamburg.

Dieter Wiefelspuetz, interior expert for the centre-left Social Democrat Party (SPD) in parliament, told German radio today that the bomb plot had shown that the threat of an attack in Germany had reached a new level.

''I had hoped that these were not real bombs, that it was simply a crazy person who wanted to scare the public,'' he said.

REUTERS SSC BD2210