| I gotta get one of those Expert doo-hickeys. I need the money. |
(AKI) - Apparently homegrown Muslim terror plots such as those uncovered in Germany and in neighbouring Denmark this week will continue to be hatched for years to come, according to Danish expert Martin Harrow.
| Comes as a surprise, dunnit? I know. It floored me, too. |
"People who are disillusioned will gravitate towards Islamist militancy and political violence," Harrow told Adnkronos International (AKI).
 More to the point, people who think it's kewl to visit violence on their fellows will gravitate toward political violence of some sort. The willingness to do violence gives an otherwise unaccomplished personality something to be noticed for.
If you own a turban, your violence'll probably be the Islamist sort. And if you don't own a turban, violence and mayhem aren't viewed as quite so kewl, except in places like Colombia. Since the Red Brigades went out of business, you have to become an anarchist to wear a ski mask and toss bombs, and you have to wait for G8 summits.
But that also means you have to know who Emma Goldmann was. Worse, you might have to read something she wrote, upon which you'll discover it makes no more sense than the Koran, so you'll probably end up buying a turban anyway. |
He is a terrorism researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS).
| I'll have to send them a resume. I can utter obvious profundities with the best of 'em. It is kind of a long commute, though. I was hoping to find a job a little closer to home. |
Harrow said Germany's deployment of 3,000 troops in Afghanistan might have contributed to the radicalisation the three German converts to Islam and the Turkish citizen arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of planning massive attacks on Frankfurt airport and the US military base in Ramstein.
| More likely they thought it'd be pretty kewl to blow something up to validate their turbans... |
Similarly, Denmark's decision to contribute troops in Iraq, and the publication last year by Danish daily Jllyands Posten of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed could have played a role in radicalising the eight Muslim suspects arrested in Denmark late on Monday.
| Yep. If none of us infidels ever did anything then no members of the Master Religion would try and kill us, unless they happened to feel like it. |
Discrimination experienced by Muslims in the European countries they live in may also play in their radicalisation, according to Harrow. "But there is no clear relationship between injustices in the world, lack of opportunities and political violence," he said. Women and young Christian African immigrants in Denmark, who undoubtedly experience discrimination, but do not resort to violence, Harrow said, illustrating this point.
| You seldom see itinerant illegal tomato pickers explode now, do you? Though they will occasionally hold up a liquor store. |
The Danish and the German plots appear to be 'homegrown', i.e. "not initiated or planned in the caves of Tora Bora in Afghanistan," said Harrow.
| The intended perps are all young, for the most part, and they get their inspiration from turbanized web sites. Most of these plots should be filed under takfir wal hijra, rather than under al-Qaeda, but when they occasionally get off the ground al-Qaeda will be there to send them some money and a helpful Pak or two to assist with the plotting and planning. |
Danish and German security services both said there had been international cooperation in their respective anti-terror operations. "This makes it plausible there may have been some kind of connection," said Harrow, commenting on speculation that there may have been a link between the Danish and German arrests. "It is hard to imagine today a plot that doesn't branch out to other European countries," Harrow said. The Internet and web chatrooms are the main way that Muslim militants can enter into contact in different countries, he said.
| There are no international boundaries in the electronic caliphate. |
Danish police said they believed the terror cell had direct connections with al-Qaeda.
| Once you've found the Pak you've found the Qaeda connection. |
And German investigators said the three suspects arrested were members of the al-Qaeda linked Islamic Jihad Union and had trained in Pakistan.
| I just said that, didn't I? |
Asked if he believed there could be an al-Qaeda link to the German and Danish plots and whether they may have been orchestrated by a 'Big Brother' in Pakistan or Afghanistan, Harrow said: "This is possibly the most interesting question." Training in Pakistan does not necessarily mean training in an al-Qaeda camp, he noted.
| Right. And a trip to the Vatican doesn't necessarily mean you went there to visit a Catholic. |
"Where were they trained and by whom?" he asked.
| Ah, yes. That's the question: North or South Wazoo? Probably not. They train Taliban there. Bajaur or Khyber or Mohmand? Likely. The closer you get to Chitral the higher the likelihood that the trainers were Arabs. |
The number of videos al-Qaeda has released since 2001, the US military incursions into Afghanistan and the deployment of over 80,000 Pakistani troops to the border areas all appear to show its strength. But there is little evidence of direct al-Qaeda involvement in the recent plots in Europe, Harrow said.
| There's been at least one Pak involved in every one of them, hasn't there? |
"Despite hints of al-Qaeda involvement in the case of the July 2005 London bombings, the evidence is not carved in stone," he said.
"Do these rose-colored glasses make my ass look fat me look like Mama Cass?" |
More details of the foiled Danish plot and its possible al-Qaeda links should emerge when the two of the suspects appear in court in three weeks time, Harrow said. All the men arrested in the Greater Copenhagen area of Denmark are aged 19-29 and are of Pakistani, Somali and Turkish and Afghan origins.
| I rest my case. And, yer honor, I'd like double my usual fee. |
Six are Danish citizens and the other two are legal residents. They are suspected of planning what police said they believe was an al-Qaida supported attack on unspecified targets. |