muslim hate of Denmark

Amid concerns over returning fighters travelling to Europe from the conflict in Syria, the Danish government has announced plans to revoke citizenship from those who have taken up arms and joined terrorist groups in the Middle East.

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a statement: “These are people who have turned their backs on Denmark and fought with violence against our democracy and freedom. They pose a threat to our security. They are unwanted in Denmark.

“The government will, therefore, do everything possible, to prevent them from returning to Denmark.”

Kurdish forces in Syria are currently holding an estimated 2,000 ISIS militants who have European passports. The Danish government believes that at least 158 Danish citizens have joined forces with Islamist groups in Iraq and Syria since 2012.

At least 27 are believed to still be in the conflict zone and 12 have been imprisoned by the Kurds.

“There is a risk that the Kurdish-controlled IS-camps in the border area will collapse and that foreign warriors with Danish citizenship will move toward Denmark,” said Frederiksen on Monday.

The new law would allow the government to remove citizenship for fighters who have dual citizenship without a court order. However, the legislation would not apply to those who only have Danish citizenship. Other European countries are said to be considering similar proposals, fearing prisoners released in the Syrian conflict may return to Europe to commit acts of terrorism.

The United Kingdom has already stripped citizenship from dozens of fighters who travelled to Islamic State-controlled territory to support the terrorist group, with as many as two individuals a week having their passports revoked during 2018. Some have been higher-profile cases than others, with self-confessed “enemy of Britain” ‘Jihadi Jack’ losing his citizenship this year.

More controversial was “no regrets” Jihadi bride Shamima Begum, who enjoyed the support of several UK newspapers that argued the government’s decision to remove her citizenship would be inhumane. The young woman, who was reported to have worked as a sharia enforcer for the ISIS administration cooly described seeing a decapitated head and feeling no remorse for the killing because she believed the man had been anti-Muslim.

Responding to the decision by then-home secretary Sajid Javid to revoke her citizenship, Begum said it was “a bit unjust”. The case illustrated the difficulty of revoking dual citizenship status, however, as Bangladesh also renounced its claim on her, leaving the Jihadist potentially stateless.

The law comes in the wake of news that Denmark will enact permanent border controlswith Sweden due to rising gang violence and bombings in the Scandinavian country.

In June, the Danish Justice Minister Søren Pape Poulsen admitted that Denmark has a “big problem” with migrant criminals and that the government must make the process of deportation easier.

July 3, 2015

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Dozens of people chanted anti-Semitic slogans during riots that broke out in a predominantly-Muslim neighborhood of The Hague over the slaying of a suspect by police.

More than 100 people chanted about “Jewish murderers” on Thursday night in the Schilderswijk, a neighborhood where a handful of Jews live in a Jewish-owned enclave surrounded by project apartments populated by low-income families, according to a report on the The Post Online.

The riots took place at a theater stormed by protesters approximately a mile away from the enclave, the De Telegraaf daily reported.

More than 200 people were arrested since protests broke out in the Schilderswijk over the death of Mitch Henriquez, an Aruban citizen, at the hands of police officers who suffocated him during his arrest at a park.

The Schilderswijk has one of the highest crime rates in the Netherlands. Last year, the neighborhood saw riots that broke out on the margins of rallies in support of the ISIS terror group and featured its flags. Protesters hurled stones at riot police during an anti-ISIS march last year. During Israel’s war in Gaza, at least two demonstrations in Schilderswijk against Israel featured calls to slaughter the Jews.

The Jewish-owned enclave was purchased in the 19th century by the Jewish community to accommodate impoverished Jews fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe. But the Jewish population of The Hague was almost totally annihilated during the Holocaust. The area around it became populated by families of migrant workers in the 1960s and 1970s. The city is now believed to have a few hundred Jews.

Lody van Der Kamp, a Dutch rabbi who has spoken out on the need to facilitate dialog between Muslims and Jews, wrote in an op-ed for the Joodse Omroep Jewish broadcaster Thursday that “when the calm returns, it is time to take these young men by the hand and show them their own Schilderswijk’s history.”

The chickens of multiculturalism, diversity, and open borders have returned home to roost in Denmark, that land of open-mindedness on just about everything.

Earlier this week, Danish authorities thwarted the plan of four Muslim terrorists to murder the employees of the newspaper that, in 2006, carried the infamous Mohammed cartoons that sent Islamists into a global paroxysm of violence.

Danish intelligence officials say the terrorist cell planned to raid the offices of the Jyllands-Posten daily. Their goal? To “kill as many of the people present as possible.”

According to the Associated Press, Danish intelligence agents collared “four men in two raids." “An imminent terror attack has been foiled,” Jakob Scharf, head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, or PET, told the AP. The Danish intelligence chief said the suspects were “militant Islamists with relations to international terror networks.”

The suspects, AP reports, included a “44-year-old Tunisian, a 29-year-old Lebanese-born man and a 30-year-old who were living in Sweden and had entered Denmark late Tuesday or early Wednesday. The fourth person detained was a 26-year-old Iraqi asylum-seeker living in Copenhagen.” Authorities released the Iraqi for lack of evidence.

Swedish cops arrested a Tunisian with Swedish citizenship.

The Muslim terrorists hatched the plan to retaliate for the publication of 12 cartoons featuring Mohammed under the headline, “The Faces of Mohammed.” One of them featured the prophet’s turban as a bomb with a lit fuse. For Muslims, any depiction of Mohammed is blasphemy and invites a fatwa of death.

When Jyllands-Posten published the cartoons in September 2005, the Islamic world boiled into a rage that lasted into 2006. In February, Muslims marched outside the Danish Embassy in London. In Norway, 1,000 Muslims cab drivers stopped driving. A Catholic priest was killed in Turkey. In 2008, authorities in Belarus jailed an editor for publishing the cartoons. And the anger, apparently, has never subsided. In September of this year, a Chechin Muslim was injured making a bomb he planned to detonate in Copenhagen to retaliate against the newspaper.

The obvious question for Danish authorities is what to do about immigration. The Scandinavians are famously “diverse” and “multicultural.” And Denmark and its neighbors Sweden and Norway have dropped even any pretense to national sovereignty and permitted the unfettered immigration of African Muslims. The results have been apparent for years, as the European blogger Fjordman observed in 2007 of Scandinavia:

Oslo will have a non-Western majority in a few decades, if the current trends continue. There are now several researchers who predict that in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, the native population and their descendants will become a minority in their own country within this century. The only question is when. Since the Islamic Jihad usually enters a much more aggressive and physical phase once the Muslim population reaches 10-20% of the total in any given area, this does not bode well for the future of the urban regions in Scandinavia. Will they turn out different from similar regions in Thailand, the Philippines or Nigeria?

The Danes treasure freedom of speech. The question is how long they will have it. Or better yet, how long it will take for a group of terrorists to succeed and finally exact revenge, in the form of mass murder, for the publication of cartoons they did not like.

By Sher Zieve – Saudi Arabia has pulled its diplomats and Libya has closed its Danish embassy over satirical cartoon that appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. The publication is said to have featured the Muslim Prophet Mohammad in a sardonic mode.

Denmark has defended the rights of Jyllands-Posten to publish the cartoons, which has been met with anger from Islamic-run countries and countries with large Muslim populations. The Age reports: “The Danish Foreign Ministry warned against non-crucial travel to Saudi Arabia and urged Danes to be cautious in countries such as Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Algeria, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories.”

Hamas and other Muslim groups have called for both a boycott of Danish products and have threatened violence against Danish citizens. Thousands of Palestinian protestors are said to have marched through the streets of the West Bank town of Qalqilya demanding an apology from Denmark, burning the Danish flag and saying that if Norwegians or Danes traveled to the area, they would be under risk of attack.

RIYADH, January 27, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Muslim countries have stepped up political and economic pressures on Denmark and Norway after two of their publications offended millions of Muslims worldwide by publishing a series of cartons ridiculing Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

Saudi Arabia had recalled its ambassador to Denmark in protest to the Danish government's awkward response and indifference to the blasphemous cartoons in the country's mass-circulation daily Jyllands-Posten, Reuters reported Thursday, January 27.

"The Saudi government recalled its ambassador for consultations in light of the Danish government's lack of attention to insulting Prophet Muhammad by its newspapers," a government official said.

Twelve drawings depicting Prophet Muhammad in different settings appeared in the paper on September 30.

In one of the drawings, an image assumed to be that of the prophet appeared with a turban shaped like a bomb strapped to his head.

The controversial cartoons have been reprinted in a Norwegian magazine on January 10 to the outrage of the Muslim world.

And in the first admission of its kind from a Danish politician, the Danish ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Hans Klingenberg, said on Thursday that his government underestimated the crisis.

"There is a risk that we in Denmark have underestimated the indignation and anger that these cartoons have caused in the Muslim world," he told Jyllands-Posten.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen refused in October to meet with 11 ambassadors of Muslim nations to discuss the issue and reluctantly said in a New Year statement that free speech should not taken as a pretext to insult religions.

Arab foreign ministers in December condemned the Danish government for its inaction.

Danish Muslims have said the Danish premier's stance on the cartoons was not "positive" and announced plans to take their legal battle against the Jyllands-Posten to the country's federal attorney general and the EU human rights commission after loosing a local case.

They further said that prime minister only moved after mounting pressures from the Muslim world and to protect Danish investments in Arab and Muslim countries.

Al-Azhar, the highest seat of religious learning in the Sunni world, has raised the issue with the UN and international human rights organizations.

Denmark's blasphemous cartoons have triggered a boycott of Danish products in Saudi Arabia.

Alra Foods, Europe's second-largest daily company and the leading Danish exporter to the oil-rich kingdom, said phone text messages calling for a boycott of Danish products have been circulated in Saudi Arabia.

"More and more supermarkets are taking our products off their shelves and don't want fresh supplies because consumers no longer want to buy our brand," Arla Foods spokesman Louis Honore told AFP.

Arla Foods sells an estimated two billion kroner (268 million euros, 328 million dollars) worth of products every year to Saudi Arabia.

"We have to take this (boycott) threat seriously, and remain attentive so that this boycott does not spread to other Muslim countries," he added.

The International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS) threatened on Saturday, January 21, to call for a boycott of Danish and Norwegian products over the provocative publication.

Norway, on its part, has taken conciliatory steps over the issue to avoid more grave consequences.

The Norwegian foreign ministry on Thursday asked its diplomats in Muslim countries to express their "regrets" to their host governments about the re-printing of the cartoons.

"The publication of the cartoons has provoked strong reactions in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran," ministry spokeswoman Anne Lene Dale Sandsten told AFP.

The ministry sent a text to its embassies to help diplomats formulate the Norwegian position.

"The cartoons published in Christian magazine Magazinet are not helpful for the necessary bridge-building between people with different religious and ethnic backgrounds. Instead, they contribute to suspicion and a superfluous conflict," said the text, published in the Norwegian press.

Norwegian Muslim leaders blasted the magazine for reprinting the explosive cartoons as a bid by its "extremist" editors to ignite a sectarian sedition in peaceful Norway.

RIYADH, 20 January 2006 — Saudis and non-Saudis in the Kingdom are urging consumers to boycott Danish products in response to cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) printed in September in Danish daily Jyllands-Posten.

Arab News called the phone number that accompanied the message. A man who did not identify himself answered and explained his organization’s stance.

“The main objective of this message is that we encourage people to boycott goods from Denmark, which is the least thing we can do until Denmark offers an official apology for the drawings that have offended the world’s Muslims,” said the man.

“We urge all Muslim countries to protest officially to the Danish government for what the Danish newspaper has done by publishing the cartoons.”

Jamal Badawi, 29, said he is supporting the boycott. “I would really support such a campaign, because this is the least thing we can do. If they do not respect our religion or our Prophet (pbuh), then we should act in any way to respond to them except violence which will never solve any problem.”

On Sept. 30, 2005 newspaper Jyllands-Posten, Denmark’s largest, ran an article about freedom of speech centering around the issue that artists were unwilling to illustrate the Prophet without remaining anonymous for fear of being attacked by extremists. Depictions of the Prophet of Islam are religiously prohibited.

The paper accompanied the article with 12 depictions of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) by various Danish illustrators.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference and the EU Commission have condemned the printing of the cartoons.

“We are deeply alarmed that a Danish newspaper has found it appropriate to publish caricatures of Islam’s most prominent figure,” said a statement by the EU Commission, posted on the OIC website. “A picture of Muhammad (pbuh) is by itself a breach of Muslim tradition.”

The statement then went on to condemn the threats of violence that have been sent to the newspaper.

“We therefore sympathize that many Muslims feel hurt, but naturally unsympathetically oppose that some Muslims, mainly living abroad, have deemed it appropriate to threaten the newspaper in question and the caricaturists.”

Some Saudis have decided to take a more peaceful route by calling for a boycott of Danish products.

The Muslim World League recently expressed its resentment over the cartoons published by a Norwegian magazine offensive to the Prophet.

The Dutch grapple with assimilating immigrants with radically different mores.

IT'S NOT TOLERANT TO TOLERATE intolerance. That's the message of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book, "The Caged Virgin," which arrived on U.S. shores last week. Ali, a 36-year-old member of the Dutch parliament, takes her adopted country to task for being too passive in answering radicalized anti-female teachings among Muslim immigrants in Holland's famously tolerant society.

Ali, who was born into a devout Muslim family in Somalia, fled to Holland in 1992 to avoid an arranged marriage to a distant cousin. In her book and as a public figure, Ali urges the Netherlands and other Western democracies to intervene on the behalf of immigrant Muslim women who, she says, "are still enchained by the doctrine of virginity" — repressive mores that fuel the poverty and violence that spawn Islamic terrorism.

It's a critique that targets, and enrages, Muslim men. It also hits home in the halls of power in Europe, where immigration and Muslims' alienation from the larger society have become pressing issues for politicians. In some ways, Ali's criticisms echo those of Pim Fortuyn, the iconoclastic Dutch politician who was assassinated in 2002. But there are signs that Dutch society, or at least the Dutch government, is now more receptive to the message.

Most of the talk Americans hear about immigration focuses on the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living and working in the United States. But Europe, too, is struggling with an immigration dilemma. Like Americans, Europeans depend on foreign labor (including about 15 million Muslims) to keep their economy healthy. There simply aren't enough Europeans being born these days to continue to support the continent's social welfare system.

At the same time, European democracies like the Netherlands worry that the influx of migrants from countries such as Morocco and Turkey is endangering their way of life. Fairly or not, Muslim immigrants are thought to be reluctant to assimilate. Europeans are afraid of terrorist attacks and riots like the ones that inflamed France last summer. The Dutch were scandalized when filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, with whom Ali collaborated on the short feminist film "Submission: Part One," was murdered by a Muslim extremist in 2004. Ali, too, has been the target of numerous death threats and travels with bodyguards.

Ali believes that the only way to curb such violence is to force Muslims to abandon strict interpretations of the Koran and to find a new way to reconcile Islam with Western secular values. It's a message that is hard to swallow for many left-leaning Dutch, who support multiculturalism and are hesitant to criticize Muslim culture.

But many Dutch are now reassessing this reluctance — and justifiably so. Ali's book can read like an academic screed, leaning heavily on political theory to make its points. Her message, however — that liberal democracies can't afford intolerance — appears to be taking hold in the mass culture.

Sometimes it rears its head in laws that place strict limits on immigration or otherwise make foreigners feel less welcome. Other times it offers a firm-but-friendly nudge to assimilate. That's the message of a strangely mesmerizing DVD produced by none other than the Dutch government.

"Naar Nederland" is a sort of training video for would-be immigrants to the Netherlands. Intended to help migrants wend their way through the paperwork and day-to-day details of starting a new life in Holland, it is oddly unwelcoming. "It seemed bleak, cold, untouchable," one immigrant says about arriving in the country.

The message to Muslims — delivered via discussions of Dutch religious tolerance, casually dropped references to condom availability in pharmacies, endless harping on the importance of learning to speak Dutch, occasional glimpses of happy women in bikinis and a chipper warning about the perils of wearing a heavy veil when going through a security check — is clear: Welcome to our country. And welcome, also, to the way we think. You can't have one without the other. Our tolerance is conditional on yours.

"You have to emigrate mentally as well as physically," an interviewee observes.

That is hardly the call to cultural arms that Ali would like to see. But it's an honest statement from a country struggling with its better impulses, trying to balance protecting its freedoms and respecting its differences. Yes, it's kind of sad that the Dutch tolerance bubble has to burst — or at least deflate a little. But maybe, just maybe, it's a realistic step toward a peaceful future.

Seven men faced preliminary terror charges in a Danish court yesterday after a pre-dawn sweep that may have thwarted a serious attack.

The raids, days before the five-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks, followed a massive operation against an alleged plot to down transatlantic airliners in Britain and botched train bombings in Germany.

Denmark has heightened its terror preparedness because of its troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Muslim outrage triggered by caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed earlier this year.

Anti-terror squads arrested nine men at 2am in Vollsmose, a suburb of Odense, Denmark's third largest city. Two were later released.

The suspects were not identified, but were described as Danish citizens aged 18-33. Eight had immigrant backgrounds.

"Police went in and stopped the group as it was preparing an attack," said Justice Minister Lene Espersen. She said investigators believed the group was planning to attack a target in Denmark.

Lars Findsen, head of the Danish Security Intelligence Service, said the suspects "had acquired material... to build explosives in connection with the preparation of a terror act".

He said investigators had launched a pre-emptive strike to avoid any unnecessary risk.

It was the second terror case in Denmark since anti-terror laws were introduced following the 2001 attacks in the US. Two weeks ago, four suspects were charged with supplying explosives to two men arrested in Bosnia for allegedly preparing a terror attack. Investigators said that group planned to blow up a target in a European country to force the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.

In Washington yesterday, George W Bush used terrorists' words to tackle complacency among Americans about the threat of future attack.

The president said that, despite the absence of a new attack on US soil similar to the September 11 outrages, the danger of terror remained strong.

"Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them," Bush told the Military Officers' Association of America.

"The question is, will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?"

Bush said Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, home-grown terrorists and other groups had adapted to changing US defences. He referred to an al Qaeda manual found in 2000 by British police during a raid in London, which had a chapter on "guidelines for beating and killing hostages".

He also cited what he said was an al Qaeda document captured in Iraq that described plans to take over its western Anbar province and set up a government with departments of education, social services, justice and an execution unit.

"The terrorists who attacked us on September the 11, 2001, are men without conscience, but they're not madmen," he said. "They kill in the name of a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs that are evil but not insane."

In Indonesia, an Islamic militant was sentenced to eight years for harbouring the alleged mastermind of suicide bombings that killed 20 people on Bali island in October. Abdul Aziz, 30, is one of four accused of helping to hide Noordin Top, south-east Asia's most wanted terrorist, or transporting explosives. Verdicts on the others are due next week.

Indonesia has had a string of terrorist attacks blamed on members of the al Qaeda-linked militant group Jemaah Islamiah, including the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people.–AP

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) -- Six Muslims accused of plotting an attack against Dutch politicians went on trial Monday, including a man who was acquitted last year on separate charges in a setback for prosecutors.

Since Samir Azzouz's earlier trial, the government has passed new laws making membership in a terrorist organization a crime and outlawing "recruiting" for a terrorist network. Azzouz, 20, is charged with both, as well as plotting to murder one or more politicians authorities said he considered hostile to Islam.

Evidence against him includes a videotaped apparent suicide message Azzouz recorded -- leaked and broadcast on national television -- in which he is shown holding an automatic rifle and saying he wanted to punish the Dutch people for their government's support of the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

"You are considered warriors because you chose this government. Your possessions and blood are promised to us," he said on the tape.

Months after Azzouz's release following his April 2005 acquittal, he was arrested and accused of plotting to attack a Dutch politician or government building. Authorities said he had attempted to buy weapons for the attack.

Defense lawyer Victor Koppe says Azzouz is innocent of any wrongdoing and his latest prosecution shows authorities are prejudiced against him and harassing him.

Other evidence in the current case includes automatic weapons, digital bomb-making manuals, and a list of the home addresses of politicians including Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende and former member of parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali, authorities said.

Azzouz arrested in 2004

In June 2004, was arrested as a suspect in the armed robbery of a grocery store. At his home, police said they found bomb-making materials and detailed maps of Parliament, Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport and a nuclear reactor.

He was taken into custody, and the country was put on a nationwide terror alert that lasted for several weeks.

Investigators also said they found a pellet gun, ammunition clips and a silencer for automatic weapons, night vision goggles and a bulletproof vest at Azzouz's home.

In the April 2005 verdict, judges found the bomb-making materials he had assembled were not capable of causing an explosion. He was convicted on weapons possession charges and released with time served.

The Dutch secret service said then it considers him a terrorist, and the agency keeps him under constant surveillance.

Earlier this year, Azzouz testified at a trial for members of an Islamist group prosecutors call the Hofstad Network. Nine were convicted for membership in a terrorist organization, including Mohammed Bouyeri, who already was serving a life sentence for the November 2004 murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh.

Azzouz was not prosecuted as a member of the Hofstad group, but told judges at the trial: "We reject you. We reject your system. We hate you. I guess that about sums it up."

A court convicted four Dutch Muslims on Friday of plotting terrorist attacks and sentenced them to up to eight years in prison, a victory for prosecutors who had failed several times before to convict would-be terrorists before they acted.

The heaviest sentence was reserved for Samir Azzouz, 20. Judges said he had played a "central role" in the group and had prepared a suicide video meant to "strike terrible fear into the Dutch people."

The group had allegedly planned to attack Dutch politicians, including Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, and the headquarters of the Dutch intelligence agency.

Azzouz had been arrested twice before as part of investigations into alleged terrorist activities. The first time he had bombmaking materials, but was released without charge on a technicality. The second time he was charged with planning an attack but was acquitted when the judges found the preparations had not advanced far enough to prove a terrorist conspiracy.

On Friday, presiding Judge E. Koning said Azzouz had taken "concrete steps" toward an attack by gathering automatic weapons.

Koning also said the suicide videotape, together with a tapped telephone conversation "could mean nothing else" except that Azzouz was close to carrying out the attack. In that conversation, he mentioned a "soup about to boil."

Azzouz's lawyer Victor Koppe called the verdict "political" and said his client plans to appeal.

"Everything (Azzouz) says is interpreted in the worst possible way," he told Dutch television.

The prosecution was pleased with the verdict even though it was much less than the 15 years prosecutors sought, spokeswoman Digna van Boetzelaer said.

The judges ruled that the defendants shared an ideology of jihad, or holy war. But they said the defendants did not constitute a terrorist organization, which likely would have led to longer sentences.

Among other suspects, Nouredine al Fatmi, who already is serving a five-year sentence in a separate terrorism case, was given an additional four years for plotting attacks and for recruiting others for armed attacks.

Mohammed Chentouf, who judges said did not play a leading role but was also plotting attacks was sentenced to four years. Soumaya Sahla, al Fatmi's ex-wife, was given a three-year sentence for conspiring with the others. One other defendant was convicted of passport fraud and sentenced to three months. A sixth defendant was acquitted of all charges.

All six had pleaded not guilty. Defense lawyers argued they were innocent religious victims of police harassment, and that several witnesses who had testified against them were not credible.

Prosecutors say Balkenende and former lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the creative partner of slain filmmaker Theo van Gogh, may have been among the group's targets. The filmmaker was murdered by a Muslim who was offended by a film he made depicting Islam as cruel to women.

Evidence included the recovery of bomb-making manuals and radical Islamist propaganda. Azzouz's suicide video and his own testimony in this and other cases also played a role, judges determined.

The video was an indication that Azzouz was close to achieving his objective, "such as an explosion that would mean the death of many people," said Koning.

Speaking in his own defense during the trial, Azzouz said the videotaped suicide message was meant as a joke, and said he would never kill somebody in the Netherlands because under his interpretation of Islam that would be forbidden.

While testifying as a defense witness in an earlier case against several of his friends, he told judges: "We reject your system. We hate you. I guess that about sums it up."

Danes hold 2 in alleged terrorist plot
Six other suspected Islamic militants are released but could be rearrested. Police say the group had direct ties to Al Qaeda.
By Helen Hajjaj and Sebastian Rotella, Special to The Times
September 5, 2007
COPENHAGEN -- Danish police arrested eight suspected Islamic militants here Tuesday, charging two of them with planning a terrorist attack and attempted murder in what was described as a serious plot with direct ties to Al Qaeda.

Police evacuated a building in the Danish capital before searching an apartment, where they found large quantities of explosive material. The chief of the police intelligence service held an unusual news conference, at which he underscored the urgency of the threat and the alleged foreign connections of the suspects, six of whom hold Danish citizenship.
The arrests "prevented a terrorist attack," said chief Jakob Sharf, who termed the suspects "militant Islamists with international contacts."

"The fact that the suspects have a connection to leading members of Al Qaeda is a very significant aspect of this case," he said.

Sharf did not identify the leaders or the target of the alleged plot and disclosed few details. But the case is the latest of several revealing the intensity of Islamic extremism in the multiethnic immigrant neighborhoods of this small, tranquil and tolerant country.

The accusations of foreign links reiterated the fears of Western counter-terrorism officials about a resurgent core leadership of the Al Qaeda network, which during the last year has allegedly been training Western Europeans in clandestine facilities near the Pakistani-Afghan border and dispatching them on missions to attack their homelands.

Fears have been particularly high in Germany, where militant cells have had links to extremists in neighboring Denmark, since anti-terrorism agencies arrested or detected extremists who had traveled to Pakistan for training.

A law enforcement source said today that two Germans and another man had been arrested in a plot against Frankfurt Airport and U.S. military targets in Germany, including the Army barracks at Hanau. The case involved links to militants in Pakistan, the source said, but it was not immediately known whether it was related to the Denmark case.

Officials in Germany have been warning for about six months for Americans to be on alert because of indications of a terrorist threat.

"Al Qaeda has won a foothold after being on the defensive for a period of time," Sharf said.

The two chief suspects, both 21, were identified as a taxi driver of Pakistani origin and a man of Afghan origin. The ethnic backgrounds of the others include Somalian and Turkish.

Police released the six other suspects after questioning them Tuesday, but anti-terrorism sources said they could be arrested again as investigators wade through a large quantity of evidence. In keeping with strict privacy laws, authorities did not release any names.

In announcing the arrests, police cited cooperation with a number of foreign intelligence agencies during a long, labor- intensive investigation. But because of Denmark's tough civil rights protections and mixed record on terrorism prosecution, police will be under pressure to answer questions about two key issues: the alleged target of the accused plotters and the nature of their supposed ties to Al Qaeda.

Sharf pointedly avoided confirming whether the attack would have been carried out in Denmark, thereby leaving open the scenario of a plot staged for execution in a neighboring country.

In addition, he did not reveal whether the police had determined that the suspects traveled overseas to meet with Al Qaeda figures or communicated with them by phone or the Internet.

The recurring pattern in a string of attacks and plots in Britain in recent years has involved British extremists, mostly of Pakistani origin, heading to Pakistan and being groomed for strikes back home.

Elsewhere in Europe, most plots and attacks have involved ties to masterminds and trainers active in North Africa or the Middle East.

If Al Qaeda in Pakistan played a role in the Danish case, that would be a worrisome expansion of the network's reach.

The foreign connections in previous cases in Denmark have been less direct.

This year, a court in Bosnia-Herzegovina convicted two members of a Copenhagen-based cell of preparing a bomb attack in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, while one accomplice was convicted here and a judge overturned the jury convictions of several others.

Those militants were part of a young but ferocious network dominated by a Moroccan based in London who used his computer expertise to become a leading propagandist and cyber-operative for Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq. The Moroccan was also convicted this year.

In another Danish case, a trial is to begin here today of four young Muslim men from Denmark's third-largest city, Odense, on charges of plotting an attack with explosives found in the garden of one defendant. That group was allegedly a multiethnic homegrown cell with minimal foreign connections.

Also this year, a court accused Said Mansour, a Moroccan extremist ideologue based in Denmark, of with having ties to top European Al Qaeda figures, many of whom were jailed in crackdowns after the Sept. 11 attacks. Mansour was convicted of spreading propaganda promoting terrorism.

Denmark is seen as a potential target of Islamic terrorism because of its military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and because of the publication in a Danish newspaper in 2005 of caricatures seen by some Muslims as insulting to the prophet Muhammad.

The upcoming anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks also could have had an influence on the timing of the raids.