Iraq News

German tied to 9/11 attacks caught in Syria: Pentagon

A Syrian-born German national accused of helping to plan the September 11th, 2001 attacks in the US has been detained in Syria by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), AFP reported Friday (April 20th).

"We can confirm that Mohammad Haydar Zammar, a Syrian-born German national, was captured more than a month ago by SDF partners," Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon said in a Thursday statement.

Zammar has been accused of recruiting some of the September 11th al-Qaeda hijackers who carried out attacks on Washington and New York, killing almost 3,000 people.

He was detained in Morocco in December 2001 in an operation involving CIA agents, and was handed over to the Syrian authorities two weeks later.

A Syrian court sentenced Zammar to 12 years in prison in 2007. But conflict broke out in Syria four years later, and many hardline prisoners were released from jail or broke free and went on to join extremist groups fighting in the war.

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