Hamas ‘plot to hold out assault on civilians in Europe is foiled’

Danish authorities mentioned Thursday they prevented a terror assault after three arrests in Denmark and a fourth within the Netherlands, as Israel mentioned the suspects in Denmark have been performing ‘on behalf of Hamas‘.

In Berlin, prosecutors mentioned German police additionally arrested three suspected members of Hamas on Thursday, accused of getting ready an assault in opposition to Jewish targets in Europe.

The three males, together with one other suspect arrested within the Netherlands, have been mentioned to have begun getting ready a weapons cache within the German capital the place arms can be ‘saved in a state of readiness in view of potential terrorist assaults in opposition to Jewish establishments in Europe,’ German federal prosecutors mentioned in a press release.

Danish police refused to touch upon whether or not there was any hyperlink between the arrests reported in Denmark and Germany.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned in the meantime in a press release that Danish safety forces had ‘thwarted an assault, the objective of which was to kill harmless civilians on European soil.’

‘The Hamas terrorist organisation has been working relentlessly and exhaustively to increase its deadly operations to Europe, and thereby represent a menace to the home safety of those international locations,’ Netanyahu mentioned.

Danish police didn’t go into particulars concerning the suspects or give any indication as to the doable goal of the alleged plot.

Danish police mentioned raids have been ongoing throughout the nation and have been carried out at an early stage of the investigation 

Israel’s Mossad spy company mentioned that the Danish businesses had uncovered ‘Hamas infrastructure on European soil,’ based on a press release from the workplace of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (pictured)

FILE – Palestinian militants from Hamas experience on a truck with their weapons

‘It was a bunch that was planning an act of terror,’ Flemming Drejer, head of operations on the PET intelligence service, informed a information convention.

There have been ‘ramifications involving different international locations’ and organised crime, he added.

Drejer would solely say that different suspects at present overseas have been additionally regarded as implicated within the plot.

The PET and a number of other police districts made the arrests in Denmark in early morning raids in a number of components of the Scandinavian nation, the officers mentioned.

The menace degree in opposition to Denmark is judged to be elevated, with the PET placing it at 4 on their five-point menace scale.

Police stepped up their presence in Copenhagen however mentioned the capital remained ‘secure’.

The Jewish neighborhood nonetheless cancelled a public Hanukkah celebration deliberate for Thursday night, Danish media reported.

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen mentioned the operations ‘present us the scenario that Denmark is in’.

‘For a number of years we’ve got famous that there are individuals who stay in Denmark and who don’t want us effectively, who’re in opposition to our democracy, our freedom, and who’re in opposition to Danish society,’ she informed reporters.

Drejer and Dahl maintain a press briefing on coordinated police motion, on the police station in Copenhagen, Denmark

Chief police inspector and operational chief of Police Intelligence Service (PET) Flemming Drejer (R) and senior police inspector and head of emergency providers in Copenhagen Police Peter Dahl maintain a press briefing on coordinated police motion, on the police station in Copenhagen, Denmark

Over the summer season, Denmark and neighbouring Sweden turned the goal of anger in a number of Muslim international locations after a slew of protests in Scandinavia involving burnings and desecrations of the Koran.

In Iraq, almost a thousand protesters tried to march on the Danish embassy in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone in late July following a name by firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr.

Between July 21 and October 24 this 12 months, 483 e book burnings or flag burnings have been recorded in Denmark, based on nationwide police figures.

In response Denmark’s parliament adopted a legislation earlier this month that criminalises the burning, tearing or in any other case defiling of non secular texts equivalent to Islam’s holy e book.

In 2006, a wave of anti-Danish anger and violence erupted within the Muslim world following the publication within the small Nordic nation of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

And in February 2015 a gunman who had voiced allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group opened hearth at a cultural centre in Copenhagen that was internet hosting a discussion board on Islam and free speech.

Last 12 months, a Danish court docket sentenced an IS sympathiser to 16 years in jail for plotting a bomb assault. The verdict was essentially the most extreme ever handed down underneath Denmark’s anti-terrorism legal guidelines.