Police arrested 22 people today in a series of pre-dawn raids across Germany in pursuit of Islamic extremists suspected of helping militant groups and recruiting fighters for "holy war".
The operation was one of the biggest of its kind in Germany, which has stepped up surveillance of suspected extremists among its Muslim population of more than three million since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Police and prosecutors said nationals of six Arab countries, Bulgaria and Germany were among the 17 men and five women held.
They told a news conference in the southern city of Ulm that some of those detained had ties to extremist groups such as Ansar al-Islam, which is fighting US forces in Iraq, and that one had undergone militant training in Pakistan.
The suspects were believed to be members of a criminal group that was providing logistical support to Islamist networks, for example by supplying them with false passports.
"They worked collaboratively, highly professionally and conspiratorially, misusing mosques and other Islamic establishments as cover," police and prosecutors said in a joint statement. They said the suspects were also accused of "spreading their beliefs in a manner that incites racial hatred, and of recruiting people for Jihad (holy war)."