(CNN) -- Three members of a jihadist group who left Hamburg, Germany, last year to train in the tribal areas of Pakistan are now back in Germany and living freely, European and German intelligence officials tell CNN.
Western intelligence agencies suspect that other members of the group still thought to be in the Afghan/Pakistan border area are involved in an al Qaeda plot to attack European countries, a plot that prompted a U.S. State Department advisory Sunday for U.S. citizens traveling in Europe.
German officials stressed that none of those who have returned is suspected of playing a role in the al Qaeda plot. But they believe some are still committed to al Qaeda's goal of global jihad.
Early in 2009, nine men and two women set off from Hamburg for the tribal areas of Pakistan, officials told CNN. The men had been recruited in the city's Taiba mosque, which lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta once attended. A European counterterrorism official told CNN that before departing, the group talked about an upcoming trip to Spain to mislead those monitoring their communications.
The group planned to take different routes to Pakistan -- some taking flights connecting through the Gulf states, and some traveling over land through Iran, German investigators told CNN. Once there, they intended to join the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a jihadist group affiliated with al Qaeda. But only eight of the group, including two wives, made it to the Pakistan-Afghan border region, the officials said.
German police detained one member of the group -- 25-year-old Mohammad Mohammadi, a German of Iranian descent -- before he left the country, German intelligence officials told CNN. They said Mohammadi was arrested as he boarded a flight at Frankfurt airport. Mohammadi has not faced any charges.
Two others -- Alexander Janzen, 30, and Michael Wallinger, 25, German converts to Islam from the former Soviet Union -- were arrested soon after arriving in Pakistan, German intelligence officials said. When the duo boarded a flight in Vienna, Austria, security officials discovered jihadist literature in their bags, according to Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, quoting German officials.
According to the report, the duo were allowed to board flights to Doha, Qatar, and then on to Karachi, where they were arrested and deported to Germany. Neither was charged with any crime on their return, but security services continue to keep them under close watch, officials told CNN.
Mohammadi, Janzen and Wallinger rejoined the Taiba mosque after their failed attempts to reach the tribal areas of Pakistan, the officials told CNN. Police closed the mosque in August 2010 because of its alleged links to radical Islamist extremists.
CNN has made several attempts to speak with Janzen and Wallinger. Janzen's family said he had been visited by police and did not want to take questions from reporters. Wallinger refused to answer the doorbell when CNN called at his apartment building. But he later e-mailed CNN to say that he was willing to tell his story for 500,000 euros (about $695,000). CNN declined.
Both men were radicalized after they started attending the Taiba mosque, German intelligence officials told CNN. Janzen was born in the Chechnya area of Russia and converted to Islam in a German prison after being convicted of drug possession charges, the officials told CNN. Wallinger, originally from Kazakhstan, converted to Islam at high school in Germany, according to a report in Der Spiegel.
CNN was unable to locate Mohammadi, who has no address in Hamburg.
Details about the group's intentions and its part in an alleged al Qaeda conspiracy to launch Mumbai-style attacks in Europe are said to have come from Ahmed Sidiqi, an Afghan German member of the Hamburg group who is being held by U.S. authorities at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, according to European counterterrorism officials. He was detained in Kabul in July, his family says. German officials recently visited Sidiqi and are evaluating his claims, the officials told CNN.
While Sidiqi was in the Afghan/Pakistan border area, he had several phone conversations with Wallinger in Hamburg, German officials say.
Sidiqi's claims are being cross-checked against the testimony of Rami Makanesi, 25, a German-Syrian member of the Hamburg group, a European counterterrorism official told CNN. According to a report in Der Spiegel quoting German officials, Pakistani security services arrested Makanesi in Bannu near the tribal areas of Pakistan as he was on his way to the German Embassy in Islamabad to get the documents necessary to travel back to Germany.
According to Pakistani officials quoted in the report, Makanesi had been trained in how to make suicide vests and had participated in attacks on NATO troops in Afghanistan. Makanesi was deported to Germany in August and is in custody in southern Germany while German authorities investigate his alleged terrorist group membership. He has not been formally indicted.
Two members of the Hamburg group are believed to be still at large in the tribal areas, according to European intelligence officials. They are Naamen Meziche, the French-Algerian ringleader of the group, and his deputy, Asadullah M., a German of Afghan descent. German intelligence officials say Meziche, a onetime close friend of Atta, was the chief recruiter of the group in the Taiba mosque in Germany. Last weekend, Meziche's wife, who lives in Hamburg, confirmed to CNN that her husband was overseas, but she declined to answer any other questions about him.
German intelligence officials believe that around 40 jihadists from Germany are in the ranks of jihadist groups in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. Since the 1990s, more than 200 people are presumed to have traveled from Germany to the area for paramilitary training, with around 100 now back in Germany, the officials said.
CNN's Claudia Otto contributed to this report.
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