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Watch On Terror: Arrests In Denmark

  • December 30th, 2010
  • Posted by EUEditor

denmark-police-denmarkemborg.jpgPolice in Denmark and Sweden have arrested five men accusing them of planning an attack on the Jyllands-Posten newspaper which published satirical cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

The Danish police said they were holding two men of Middle East background, a third who had just traveled across from Sweden, and an asylum seeker from Iraq who had been living in Denmark.

A Swedish citizen of Tunisian origin was arrested in Stockholm.

Security authorities said they had seized an automatic weapon with silencer and ammunition, and said the men had been involved in a plan to attack the newspaper’s office in Copenhagen, to “kill as many people as possible”.

The incident adds a serious chapter to a run of terror attacks, or arrests of suspected terrorists, during the closing weeks of 2010. See EUAustralia Online, “Watch on terror”, 28.12.10.

The publication of the cartoon representing Mohammed in 2005 was denounced as blasphemy by several Islamic organisations which mounted protests.

There have been as many as four plots until now, to attack the newspaper or its cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard.

The Muslim Council of Denmark said on Thursday (30.12.10) it “absolutely condemned any act of terrorism”, and the national journalists’ union said it had been taking part in dialogue with Islamic interests on the reaction to the offending cartoon.

Reference

AP, NY, “Five arrested in plot …”, 30.12.10. htp://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jXDLznW4aCXcUQK2L8v4FmARooEQ?docId=235d356b38cc4c199299424a1351f5d4, (30.12.10).

BBC News, London, “Denmark holds cartoon plotters:, 30.12.10.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/, (30.12.10).

Picture   denmarkemb.org