"Right now, Denmark faces the worst threat assessment in many years and a terror attack can take place without any warning."
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFcartoondenmarkprotest88(photo credit: )
Denmark faces the worst terror threat in many years with a possible attack happening at any time, officials said Wednesday.
Denmark's intelligence service said the publication of 12 Danish drawings of the Prophet Muhammad and Denmark's military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan have helped focus militant extremists' attention on the small Nordic country.
"Right now, Denmark faces the worst threat assessment in many years and a terror attack can take place without any warning," the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, or PET, said in a report. "There are people and groups at home that are planning acts of terror here or abroad."
The 86-page annual report also said that militant extremists abroad wanted to target Denmark or Danish interests aboard.
On June 2, a car bomb killed six people outside the Danish Embassy in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. Two months before that attack PET had warned of a terror threat from militant extremists, especially in North Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The agency said the risk of attack was heightened by the Feb. 13 reprinting in Danish media of a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban. It was one of 12 prophet drawings that sparked riots in the Muslim world in 2006.
The original publication of the cartoons and the later reprint were both done in the name of freedom of speech.
Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.
PET also cited military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as having increased the threat of attack. Denmark withdrew its troops from Iraq last year, but more than 600 soldiers are part of the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan.
Since 2005, Danish police have foiled four alleged terror plots, mostly involving homegrown extremists accused of preparing terror acts in Denmark or other countries.
The last terror attack in Denmark occurred in 1985 when a bomb exploded outside the offices of North West Orient airlines in Copenhagen, killing one person and wounding 16.
