A Tunisian man suspected of involvement in the Bardo Museum attack in Tunis has been arrested in Germany during large-scale police raids.



The 36-year-old, who has not yet been named, was arrested in the early hours of Wednesday morning. He did not resist arrest, according to police.

He is suspected of being a recruiter and smuggler for Isis and of building a network of supporters to help him plan and carry out an attack in Germany.

Alexander Badle, a spokesman for Frankfurt’s state prosecution service, said: “He had built up a support network in Germany. His goal was to carry out a terror attack in Germany. There was not yet a target, and no concrete danger.”

He added: “He is wanted in Tunisia for alleged participation in the planning and execution” of the Tunis attack.

Twenty-one tourists were killed in the museum attack in March 2015, for which Isis claimed responsibility.

The suspect is also wanted in connection with an attack on the town of Ben Guerdane, on the Tunisian-Libyan border, in March last year, in which 13 members of the security forces and seven civilians were killed.

The police raids targeted suspected members of the Islamist scene in the cities of Frankfurt, Offenbach and Wiesbaden, in the state of Hesse. They involved 1,100 officers searching more than 50 flats, mosques and businesses.

Police arrested a total of 16 suspects between the ages of 16 and 46. Peter Beuth, the interior minister for Hesse, said the raid had “smashed a multi-branched Salafist network”.

In a separate operation in Berlin, the focus was on the Fussilet mosque in the inner-city district of Moabit. The mosque was frequented by Anis Amri, the man who attacked a Christmas market in the capital in December.

Meanwhile, Germany’s interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, has announced that Islamists deemed a threat could in future be fitted with electronic tags.

The decision – a direct response to the Christmas market attack – was reached by the cabinet and requires an alteration to be made to the criminal code.

• This article was amended on 2 February 2017. Due to an editing error an earlier version said the raids involved 11,000 officers. This has been corrected to 1,100.