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Security chief says Al Qaida plotting in Denmark
Al Qaida is planning an attack in Denmark, the head of the Danish security police said on Friday, two weeks after the network claimed responsibility for a deadly bombing at the Danish embassy in Pakistan.
- Reuters
- Published: 20:41 June 13, 2008
Copenhagen: Al Qaida is planning an attack in Denmark, the head of the Danish security police said on Friday, two weeks after the network claimed responsibility for a deadly bombing at the Danish embassy in Pakistan.
"We see now, also in cases not yet public, a determined steering, training and planning of a terror attack on Danish soil with management from Al Qaida," Security and Intelligence Service (PET) head Jakob Scharf said in an interview published on newspaper Nyhedsavisen's website.
Al Qaida said earlier this month it was behind a suicide attack on Denmark's embassy in the Pakistani capital Islamabad that killed six and injured 20.
Scharf said Al Qaida had a strong desire to carry out an attack in Denmark.
In March, its leader Osama bin Laden threatened the European Union over the publication of the cartoons of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), one of which was reprinted in Danish newspapers in February.
According to the PET, young Danes have been training at camps on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where British and German recruits have also been schooled in militant tactics.
Scharf said there were "a number of operations running". "We are looking at people and networks in Denmark which constitute a concrete threat and have the will and the means to carry out an attack," he said.
He said young potential Islamist militants were more professional now than ever. "They are better, more dedicated and better trained."
Scharf said Denmark was a target even before the publication of the cartoons, but that this year's reprinting of one of the images had put the Nordic country back into the spotlight.
Danish newspapers reprinted the cartoon to protest a plot to murder the cartoonist uncovered by police earlier this year.
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