Police Ransack Suspected Hamburg Terror Cell

Hamburg police took six people suspected of being members of an Islamic fundamentalist terror cell into custody early Wednesday morning and searched buildings they believed housed members of the cell, according to German law enforcement.

Police said the Federal Prosecution's Office had been observing eight men, between the ages of 28 and 51, since early February. Italian police searched the apartment of an additional suspect living in Italy and fingerprinted him, according to Hamburg police.

The focus of the investigation was a book store called Attawhid, which was near the Al Quds Mosque visited by Sept. 11 suicide bombers Mohammed Atta, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah. Law enforcement and federal prosecutors said the book store had been a focal meeting point for the group, which included men from Afghanistan, Morocco and Egypt.

The men took "conspiratorial and special security measures" to ensure their meetings remained a secret. The Federal Prosecutor's Office said they didn't have evidence the group was planning attacks.

Officials said they believed one of the eight had "supported" Atta, Al-Shehhi and Jarrah, who international investigators say planned and carried out the airline hijackings and attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. But it was still unknown whether any of them participated in the planning.

Hamburg police also found themselves investigating one of their own employees. The 41-year-old Moroccan file clerk is suspected of being in the fraudulent credit card business and had contact with the group.