Anti-terrorist police said two others were being sought.

The arrests were not directly connected to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, but are part of an ongoing crackdown on militants allegedly linked to bin Laden's al-Qaida organization.

All three were charged with criminal association intended to obtain and transport arms and explosives, and supplying false documents.

The operation was part of an ongoing probe that includes the April arrest of Essid Sami Ben Khemais, a Tunisian who police in Europe now believe was sent from Afghanistan to supervise bin Laden's terrorist operations in Europe.

Spanish investigators have told The Associated Press that Ben Khemais may have met in Spain earlier this year with Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers who hit the World Trade Center, and with members of an Algerian group now in Spanish custody.

Ben Khemais and another five people arrested in Italy and Germany in April have also been linked to an attack that had been planned for January on the U.S. Embassy in Rome.

Milan Prosecutor Stefano Dambruoso said Wednesday that investigators have uncovered evidence of cooperation among al-Qaida cells in a number of European countries, including Germany, France, Spain and Belgium.

Bruno Megale, an official of Italy's anti-terrorist police, said the key figure arrested Wednesday was a Libyan picked up in Munich. Megale said Lased Ben Henin had trained at Afghan camps believed run by bin Laden and was "very ideologically motivated."

In Germany, the Interior Ministry in the state of Bavaria said the 32-year-old Libyan, arrested near his Munich home, was already known to German security agencies from earlier probes into a group of suspected bin Ladin associates accused of planning a terrorist attack in France last year.

Prosecutors have said the group had planned to carry out an attack in Strasbourg, France, during New Year's Eve celebrations.

The Bavarian ministry also said he is wanted by the Italians in connection with a criminal group. Court spokeswoman Wilma Resenscheck said procedures to extradite the Libyan to Italy were expected to begin soon.

In Milan, police arrested a Tunisian, Belgacem Mohamed Ben Aouadi, as he came out of a mosque. The third man, Riadh Jelassi, also of Tunisia, was served with an arrest warrant in prison, where he was being held on charges of receiving stolen goods.

Interior Minister Claudio Scajola had earlier put the number of arrests Wednesday at four but Megale clarified that only three people were arrested.

Megale said the trio had planned to give false passports to young militants passing through Italy to be trained in Afghan camps.

According to wiretaps dating to March, the suspects spoke frequently of bin Laden "as a model to imitate," the police official said.

Megale said the tapes revealed a generic reference "to financing of the Chechnya cause," but did not provide further details. Muslim fighters from the Middle East and elsewhere have been recruited to fight the Russians in Chechnya.

Indictments against at least a half-dozen alleged Islamic extremists in Italy are expected soon and officials said they will be brought to trial by March.

Separately, Florence Prosecutor Francesco Fleury said he was investigating a Somali man for possible links to the Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, or Islamic Union, which is believed to have links to al-Qaida.

The organization was among those named by President Bush in an executive order freezing the assets of suspected terrorist groups following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Fleury said the Somali man is suspected of channeling large sums of money to a Dubai-based holding called Al Barakaat, which in turn is suspected of providing money to Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya.

The prosecutor said the man denies any wrongdoing and says he used Al Barakaat only to send money from Somali immigrants in Italy to their families back home.

In France Wednesday, four suspected Muslim militants rounded up ahead of a France-Algeria soccer match were jailed for alleged terrorist links, judicial officials said.

The suspects, taken into custody Friday outside Paris, are under investigation for "criminal association in connection with a terrorist enterprise," according to French officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

There was no indication the four were linked to an uncovered plot to attack U.S. interests in France.