One of the terror suspects arrested in Germany this past week, may have met 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta, according to German police.

The prime suspect in the alleged German terror plot to blow up hundreds of people may have had contact with Mohammed Atta, the suicide pilot who smashed a hijacked plane into the Twin Towers.

German police reports are vague about the encounter, but it has helped investigators to trace Fritz Gelowicz’s path from average Bavarian schoolboy to Islamic radical. His case has also highlighted the curious and sinister role of Neu-Ulm — a small township in the Roman Catholic heart of southern Germany — as a cradle of Islamic extremism.

The connection between Gelowicz, 28, who was arrested this week, and Atta seems to date back to 2000 while the suicide pilot was studying in Hamburg and already preparing the 9/11 attack with a group of devout accomplices.

So I’m left to assume that Gelowicz had at least some knowledge of 9/11. In regards to the new plot, it sounds like they were getting ready to go:

For the past nine months, since returning from a training camp in Pakistan, Fritz Gelowicz allegedly gathered 750kg of hydrogen peroxide to make several truck bombs that would be directed at American air bases or clubs and pubs frequented by Americans. But during that same period he also went through a number of rituals as if preparing himself for death, or at least for a dramatic change.

In January, soon after being spotted spying on a US base in Hanau, he married a German-Turkish woman according to the strict rules of Islam; the bride wore a burka. A few days ago he mystified his parents by visiting them both and bidding them farewell.

I haven’t seen it in any reports, so it may have already been mentioned, but a quick Google search finds USAG Hessen – Hanau Community (Installation Management Command) as the military base in Hanau. Perhaps someone stationed there past or present can actually confirm if there are others.