(Copenhagen) Eight people, suspected of being linked to Hamas, were arrested in Europe on suspicion of preparing terrorist attacks, during two separate raids carried out in Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.
Three people were arrested in Denmark and another in the Netherlands on Thursday to thwart a planned terrorist attack, Danish police and intelligence services (PET) said, with Israel saying the suspects arrested in Denmark were linked to Hamas .
The German federal prosecutor’s office, responsible for terrorism cases, for its part announced the arrest of four alleged members of Hamas, including one in the Netherlands, suspected of having planned “possible attacks against Jewish institutions in Europe”.
The four men, suspected of being members of the Islamist movement for a long time, were notably responsible for gathering weapons in Berlin with a view to possible attacks.
Danish intelligence services stressed that there was no direct link between the arrests announced by Germany and those carried out in Denmark.
“There is no direct link between the terrorist arrests made in Denmark and the case involving people affiliated with Hamas arrested in Germany. The person referred to in the press as a 57-year-old man arrested in the Netherlands has no connection with the Danish case and is not identical to the person referred to (by Danish authorities) arrested in the Netherlands in the “Danish affair,” the PET wrote in a statement.
“There are foreign links in this case, but we are only at the beginning of the investigation and we have not yet determined what the foreign links are between the Danish case,” is added.
During a press conference at midday, the authorities of the Scandinavian country indicated that the arrests concerned “a group which was preparing an act of terrorism”.
“There are links with foreign countries” and organized crime, explained the director of operations of the intelligence services, Flemming Drejer.
No information has been released on a possible target of a terrorist attack.
Police said they would increase their presence in Copenhagen, but that the Danish capital remained “safe.” The Jewish community, however, canceled a public celebration of Hanukkah, the Danish press reported.
For the Prime Minister, this dragnet “shows the situation in which we find ourselves in Denmark”.
It has been “several years since we have been able to see that there are people who live in Denmark and who do not wish us well, who are against our democracy, our freedom and who are against Danish society,” declared Mette Frederiksen to the press.
Intelligence services consider the terrorist threat “critical,” placing it at level four out of five.
Profanations
Denmark and neighboring Sweden have recently crystallized anger within Muslim countries after desecration of the Koran on their soil.
In Iraq, for example, hundreds of supporters of the influential religious leader Moqtada Sadr attempted to march towards the Danish embassy in Baghdad at the end of July.
Denmark has since legislated to ban the burning of Islam’s holy book, arguing it was to protect national security.
Already in 2006, a wave of anti-Danish violence had engulfed the Muslim world after the publication of caricatures of Mohammed, leading to increased vigilance by the intelligence services and the police who have since foiled several planned attacks.
However, Copenhagen was devastated in February 2015 by a jihadist attack, which seemed to be inspired by the attacks committed in Paris a month earlier against the weekly Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Cacher store.
The perpetrator of this attack had targeted a cultural center where a debate on freedom of expression was taking place and the main synagogue in the capital of this Scandinavian country before being shot dead by the police.
A year ago, Danish justice sentenced a sympathizer of the Islamic State organization to 16 years in prison for a planned bomb attack, the heaviest sentence handed down in Denmark in a case falling under anti-terrorism legislation.
The accused pleaded not guilty, claiming that the 12 kilos of powder and chemicals found hidden at his home were to be used to make fireworks.