This how the news distorts, NBC in this instance, by calling a Jihadi terrorist a German extremist.

Suspected 9/11 recruiter Mohammed Haydar Zammar captured in Syria: report

The 9/11 Commission Report branded the German an "outspoken, flamboyant Islamist" who "relished any opportunity to extol the virtues of violent jihad."

:24 AM ET / Updated 5:29 AM ET

Mohammed Haydar Zammar leaves a mosque in Hamburg, Germany, in 2001.Knut Mueller / Der Spiegel via AP file

A GERMAN EXTREMIST with links to Sept. 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and other attackers has been detained in Syria, the AFP news agency reported late Wednesday.

 Mohamed Atta. AP File / AP

“Mohammed Haydar Zammar has been arrested by Kurdish security forces in northern Syria and is now being interrogated,” AFP quoted a Kurdish military commander as saying. NBC News was not immediately able to independently confirm the report.

Germany's Bild newspaper reported that Zammar had been captured by the Kurdish People's Defense Forces, which is among the militias allied with the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS in northern Syria.

According to the official congressional report into the 9/11 attacks by al Qaeda, Zammar is a Syrian-born German national who lived in Hamburg. It described him as an "outspoken, flamboyant Islamist" and a "possible recruiter" of some 9/11 attackers.