As the German Federal Prosecutor General in Karlsruhe announced on Thursday, three people were arrested in Berlin and another suspect in Rotterdam. They are suspected of belonging to a foreign terrorist organization. According to the investigation, the weapons were to be brought to Berlin and kept ready for possible attacks on Jewish institutions in Europe.
Danish police said several people had been arrested in Denmark and the Netherlands on suspicion of preparing an attack. Danish police spoke of a coordinated cross-border operation with four arrests. According to Danish information, the arrests in Denmark are not directly related to the case in Germany, it was said.
“Terrorist act prepared by the network”
“The investigation showed that a network of people prepared an act of terrorism,” said the head of the Danish domestic secret service PET, Flemming Drejer, at a press conference in Copenhagen. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office spoke of a “Hamas infrastructure on European soil” that had been discovered in Denmark and a total of seven arrests. Netanyahu's office referred to its own foreign secret service, the Mossad, which closely exchanges information with European services.
The national authorities of the three countries initially did not disclose the name of the terrorist organization in which the detained people allegedly worked. However, the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, citing investigators, reported that all four detained in Germany and the Netherlands have been members of Hamas for years.
Abdelhamid al-A, born in Lebanon. This spring, Hamas leadership reportedly ordered us to locate weapons. Consequently, weapons stored in an underground cache were to be brought to Berlin and kept ready for possible attacks on Jewish institutions in Europe. All four suspects participated in unspecified “foreign operations” by the terrorist group. And they are said to have a “close connection” with the leadership of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.
Israel is trying to convince the West
Since the Hamas attack on October 7, Israel has repeatedly warned the West not to view the attack as part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hamas is worse than the radical Islamic terrorist group Islamic State (IS) and fights not only against Israel, but also against the free and democratic Western way of life.
The brutality and emotionality with which many Hamas fighters murdered, raped and tortured Israelis is, not only according to Israeli statements, extraordinary even for Islamic terrorist organizations. At the same time, Israel is trying to emphasize its special role in the Western region and, in the face of growing criticism of the many civilian casualties on the Palestinian side, continue to secure support from Europe and the US.
These would be Hamas' first preparations for attacks in Germany that would be known if the suspicion were confirmed, according to “Süddeutsche”.
Burning the Quran increased the risk
The Danish secret service said in August that the threat to Denmark had worsened after Islamophobic activists damaged several copies of the Quran in the summer. The arrests and raids that have now taken place are based on intensive investigations in close cooperation with partners abroad, the head of the PET. “This is an extremely serious matter,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told the Ritzau news agency on the sidelines of the EU summit in Brussels.
Dutch police said a 57-year-old man was arrested in Rotterdam at the request of German authorities as part of a German-Danish investigation. This week, Dutch counterterrorism agency NCTV raised the threat level for the country to the second-highest level of four, citing the war between Israel and the Palestinian radical Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Denmark has increased security measures around Jewish institutions. According to PET chief Drejer, the suspects have links abroad and with the banned mafia group Loyal To Familia. Arrests in Denmark took place in different locations.
Failed attack in Cyprus
It was only on Sunday that Israel and Cyprus announced that they had discovered Iran's plans to attack Israelis on the Mediterranean island. Cypriot security authorities and police, in collaboration with the Israeli secret service Mossad, managed to dismantle the “terrorist infrastructure” during the planning phase, Israel said. In the past, Palestinian and Islamic terrorist groups have repeatedly attacked Jewish and Israeli targets abroad during armed conflicts in the Middle East.