Germany raises al-Qaida suspicion

BERLIN - 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&#39;s terror network since Sept. 11. <br> <br> ``We are considering all possibilities, but those that we must consider include al-Qaida structures,&#39;&#39; Interior Minister Otto Schily said on ARD television Wednesday. <br> <br> Schily said he intends to travel to Tunisia this weekend to meet with investigators and President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, possibly on Monday.<br> <br> The number killed in the attack rose to 16 on Thursday with the death of a 15-year-old girl who had been hospitalized in the northern German city of Luebeck. Eleven of the dead were Germans. <br> <br> 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. <br> <br> 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.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> German officials refused to comment on the report in the newspaper, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which expanded on the German strand of the investigation. <br> <br> 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. <br> <br> 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&#39;t forget to pray for me.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> 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. <br> <br> The paper also said the conversation ended with the man in Germany asking, ``Do you need something?&#39;&#39; and the caller responding ``I just need daawa&#39;&#39; - which it interpreted as meaning ``I just need the order&#39;&#39; in Arabic. <br> <br> However, such an exchange is a common way for Arabs, particularly Muslims, to end conversations, with ``daawa&#39;&#39; meaning an appeal for God&#39;s blessing for the other person.

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