After three terrorism cases in less than two years, including an alleged bombing plot broken up this month, intelligence officials say Denmark is on the front line in the battle against terrorism in Europe, says a report published in The New York Times on Monday. “Even though we’ve prevented one terrorist attack, we know that there are still people in Denmark and abroad that have the capacity, the will and the ability to carry out terrorist attacks in Denmark,” the newspaper quotes Jakob Scharf, the head of Danish intelligence, as saying. According to the report, Scharf was referring to predawn raids on Sept 4 that resulted in the arrests of eight suspects, two of whom are still in custody on terrorism charges and are accused of planning a bombing attack. The report says American authorities helped Danish security officials locate the suspects through electronic intercepts from Pakistan, just as they did in arrests the same day in a bombing plot in southern Germany, intelligence officials in Washington said.
“They said one of the men in the Danish case received instruction within the past 12 months in explosives, surveillance and other techniques at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan.” With Europe again focused on the threat posed by terrorist plots, Denmark illustrates the powerful interplay between foreign agitation and domestic discontent. The country became a target of foreign Islamist terrorist groups two years ago after a conservative newspaper here published controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), drawing worldwide attention.
At home, the children of Muslim immigrants complain of job discrimination and integration problems, feeding the disenchantment of the small but growing Muslim population, says the report. “In the schools, Danish teachers are always talking about democracy and human rights, but now they see what Denmark is doing in Afghanistan and what they did here with the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad,” said Imran Shah, 31, who leads a youth group at a local mosque. “They ask themselves, is this a democracy or are they talking about double standards?”
According to the newspaper, while much of the worldÂ’s attention was focused on the arrests that took place that same day in Germany, but were announced one day later, intelligence officials here and in Washington said at least one suspect in the Danish group had direct ties to leading figures in Al Qaeda, which has regrouped in northwestern Pakistan.
“What’s coming from this is that they are now able to give military and terrorist training and able to plan and steer specific operations in Europe,” Mr. Scharf, the Danish intelligence chief, said. “Al Qaeda is back”. With a population of 5.5 million, Denmark is smaller than New York City by several million people, but it is a disproportionately large target on jihadist websites. Not only did Denmark achieve infamy across the Muslim world for the publication of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) cartoons, which incited violent and even deadly protests in other countries, it also has troops both in Afghanistan and Iraq.