BERLIN, May 17: Germany alleged on Monday that foreign states may be sponsoring local Muslim militants, as an official report linked a Saudi diplomat to members of a foiled bomb plot last year.

"We're observing very attentively whether there is support for terrorist activities from state structures," Interior Minister Otto Schily said. "There is evidence that there could have been a certain connection," he said at a news conference at which he presented the annual report of Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).

Mr Schily did not name any foreign country but said the evidence was mentioned in the report. He appeared to be referring to a section on Ihsan Garnaoui, a Tunisian man who went on trial in Berlin this month accused of links to Al Qaeda and trying to form a terrorist group to bomb US and Jewish targets in Germany.

"There was also a suspicion against the head of the Islamic department of the Saudi embassy in Berlin, for fostering close contacts to this group of violently inclined Islamists," the report said, noting that the diplomat cut short his posting and returned to Saudi Arabia in March last year.

The weekly Der Spiegel reported on Monday that BfV officials had written in a draft version, later omitted from the annual report, that there were "numerous examples" of support for international networks of militants from "semi-state Saudi institutions, functionaries and private individuals".

The evidence against the Saudi diplomat is likely to be laid out in further detail at Mr Garnaoui's trial. Ihsan Garnaoui is accused of recruiting and training bombers at the Al Nur mosque in a Berlin suburb. A German intelligence official said last week the mosque was an "interesting target" for surveillance because worshippers are known to include militants. -Reuters