Police hunting Islamic militants across Europe capped a dramatic series of anti-terror raids in three countries with the arrest of a suspected Algerian extremist in the German port of Hamburg on Friday.

Abderrazak Mahdjoub, 29, was held at the request of Italian authorities investigating an alleged network involved in recruiting Islamists to carry out suicide attacks in Iraq.

A copy of an arrest warrant, obtained by Reuters, showed that one of the recruits was suspected of complicity in an October rocket attack on a Baghdad hotel where U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying.

Separately, British police were questioning a suspected would-be suicide bomber arrested in southwest England on Thursday. The government has said the 24-year-old Muslim man may have links with al Qaeda.

The European police operations coincided with the charging of three Kenyans in connection with a previously undisclosed plot to blow up the U.S. embassy in Nairobi -- the same mission that was destroyed by suspected al Qaeda bombers in 1998.

While described as breakthroughs, the developments highlighted the fact that Islamic radicals and al Qaeda sympathizers, suspected of carrying out deadly suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia and Turkey this month, apparently remain active across a wide variety of other fronts.

In the latest alert, the NATO -led peacekeeping force in Kosovo said on Friday it had stepped up security in response to a "specific threat" against international organizations in the U.N.-run province.

IRAQ 'CRYSTALLISING' ANGER

Two years into the U.S.-led war on terror, some European security officials are expressing concern that Islamic militants may be drawing new strength from Muslim anger over the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

German foreign intelligence chief August Hanning last week described Iraq as a potential "crystallizing point" for the radical Islamist cause and said small numbers of activists had been heading there from several European countries with the aim of fighting the U.S. occupation.

Germany has been especially vigilant for signs of extremism in its 3.2 million-strong Muslim population since the September 11 attacks on the United States. Three of the 19 suicide hijackers had lived and studied for years in Hamburg.

Mahdjoub, the suspect arrested in the port city on Friday, had been previously held in Germany this summer in connection with bomb attacks in Spain, but was later released.

Four other North African suspects -- three from Tunisia and one from Morocco -- were arrested in northern Italy on Thursday in connection with the same investigation into alleged recruitment of suicide bombers for Iraq.

'CONSTANT MOVEMENT'

"We're talking about true combatants who have come back from missions and are in constant movement, looking for extremists prepared to carry out suicide attacks," one Italian investigative source said of the operation, codenamed "Bazar 2."

The suspected recruiters are expected to be charged with "subversive association for international terrorism" under a law Italy introduced after the September 11 attacks.

Terrorism hit home for Italians this month, when suicide bombers killed 19 of their compatriots at a base in southern Iraq -- Italy's worst military death toll since World War II.

Since that attack, Italy has been showing zero-tolerance toward suspected terror networks. Rome has expelled seven North Africans accused of having links with militant groups and a Senegalese-born Imam who publicly supported Osama bin Laden.

The latest batch of arrests is not the first time Italy has swooped on those suspected of recruiting suicide bombers.

In April, police said dozens of Islamic extremists were being approached in Italy and Germany and sent to training camps in Syria before going to northern Iraq to join a group with links to al Qaeda. They made seven arrests at the time.

This time, sources say investigators have also identified a training camp in Turkey but stressed nothing had been found so far to link the suspects to the recent bombings in Istanbul.

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