Dutch police nab several jihadists who plotted synagogue attack
Two main suspects and additional accomplices had planned to attack a synagogue in Amsterdam last year.
By JTAUpdated: DECEMBER 4, 2016 16:08Border police from the Netherlands stand in front of their vehicles (photo credit: REUTERS)
AMSTERDAM — Dutch police arrested several suspects in connection with jihadists’ unrealized plan to attack a synagogue in the country’s capital city a year ago, a local daily revealed.The main suspect belonging to the ring, which is connected to Amsterdam’s Arrayan Sunni mosque, is a man in his 40s of Moroccan descent with a goatee and a receding hairline who possesses considerable knowledge of Islamic writings and drives a white Audi, according to a police document obtained last month by the Telegraaf daily.The Dutch police’s TCI counter-terrorism unit had been watching the suspect in connection with his alleged plans to strike with accomplices a synagogue in southern Amsterdam last January, according to the Telegraaf report, which said the suspect calls himself “Abdelhakim.” Several Muslims have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the alleged plan.Two right-wing Dutch lawmakers, Louis Bontes and Joram van Klaveren, last week queried the justice ministry with critical questions on actions taken to protect Dutch Jews.The report on the alleged terrorist plot by members of the Arrayan mosque community came amid discussions on replacing the permanent police protection at some Amsterdam synagogues with a cheaper video surveillance system that is favored by the municipality. The Jewish community of the Netherlands opposes the plan, citing elevated risk.The attack allegedly planned by the main suspects and at least two suspected accomplices, who were identified in the police document only as Izzy and Ibo, was part of a larger terror plot timed to occur on the last day of 2015, the Telegraaf reported based on the leaked document.