Cairo  - A public prosecutor in Cairo on Wednesday accused Hezbollah of plotting attacks in Egypt, the Interior Ministry said.

Egypt's domestic intelligence agency, State Security Investigations, supplied the prosecutor with information indicating that leaders of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Islamist group, sent members to Egypt to gather recruits for its organisation, a source in Egypt's Interior Ministry told the German Press Agency dpa on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He said suspects confessed under interrogation to training recruits to carry out attacks aimed at disrupting Egypt's national security, and to train them in the use of explosives.

Earlier on Wednesday, two sources in the Egyptian Interior Ministry told dpa that it suspected 49 Egyptian, Lebanese, and Israeli Arab men detained in December of providing support to Hamas and Hezbollah. The men's lawyer confirmed the report.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul-Gheit accused Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah of seeking "to spread chaos" in televised remarks at the beginning of Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip last December.

In televised remarks, Nasrallah had called on Egyptians to take to the streets by the millions to demand that Egypt open its border with the Gaza Strip. (dpa)