Police Arrest 5 in Danish Terror Plot
The New York Times reports:
The authorities in Sweden and Denmark announced the arrests of five men on Wednesday suspected of plotting an “imminent” attack on a Danish newspaper that set off protests around the world when it published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in 2005.
At a news conference in Copenhagen, Jakob Scharf, the head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, said the suspects had planned a “Mumbai-style” attack, referring to the 2008 assault by multiple gunmen around the Indian city that left 163 people dead. Several European countries have been on high alert for months over the possibility of such an attack.
Mr. Scharf said that the suspects were part of “a militant Islamist group with links to international terrorist networks” and that they “would have attempted to force their way into the building to kill as many as possible of the persons present.”
Two newspapers are based in the same building, but Mr. Scharf said the target was Jyllands-Posten, the Danish daily that commissioned and initially published the Muhammad cartoons. Amid the ensuing uproar, they were republished by Danish and other European newspapers expressing solidarity with Jyllands-Posten over freedom of speech.
Lars Barfoed, the Danish justice minister, called the plot “the most serious terror attempt in Denmark,” local media reported.
Four of the suspects were arrested in raids on two apartments in the suburbs of Copenhagen and a fifth was arrested in Stockholm. Three are Swedish citizens, according to a statement released by Swedish security police. The Danish and Swedish police had been following the group for months. Sites in Denmark were still being searched, according to the police, who did not rule out further arrests.
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