German police have arrested a 17-year-old asylum-seeker on suspicion of planning a suicide attack in Berlin.

He was detained in the village of Gerswalde, 60 miles north-east of the German capital, after allegedly telling family members “he had joined the jihad”.

He sent a farewell message to his family last week, said police in the state of Brandenburg on Tuesday.

Detectives are investigating but so far “evidence of the planning of a concrete act has not yet been identified”, said a spokesman.

The state Interior Ministry’s office identified the suspect as Syrian, but police spokesman Torsten Herbst said investigators were checking to see whether he falsely registered as a Syrian but was actually from a North African country.

The teenager, whose name was not released, came to Germany in 2015 as an unaccompanied minor and registered as an asylum-seeker. He has been living since 2016 in a home for minor refugees in Gerswalde, and was detained there in the Tuesday morning raid.

Mr Herbst said the teenager was still being interrogated.

German security officials have repeatedly warned that the country is in the crosshairs of international terrorism groups.

Germany suffered a number of violent attacks by Islamic extremists last year, including a lorry attack on a Berlin Christmas market in December that left 12 victims dead and dozens of others injured.

The attack, carried out by a young Tunisian man who had been denied asylum in Germany, was later claimed by Isis.

The teenager’s arrest on Tuesday came eight days after Libyan Salman Abedi blew himself up at Manchester Arena, killing 22 people.

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