Terror arrests
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| Tue, 10-27-2009 - 5:57pm |
BTW, it drove me nuts that CNN kept showing footage of the building that houses Politiken (one of the two biggest, Danish papers) interspersed with footage of the windows of Jyllandsposten (the "Muhammed Cartoon paper"). According to Danish news, the investigation was a close collaboration between the FBI, the Danish equivalent of the FBI and several other intelligence services. ETA: edited to remove claim that Headley is an American convert. He is, in fact, a Pakistani (but a US citizen) who changed his name to something American-sounding a few years ago.
Two charged by U.S. in plot to attack Danish paper
By Jeremy Pelofsky
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two Chicago men have been arrested and charged with plotting to attack a Danish newspaper whose cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed -- including one with him wearing a bomb in a turban -- led to deadly protests by Muslims, the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday.
The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005 published the controversial cartoons of Mohammad, the founder of Islam, which were subsequently republished elsewhere and sparked protests that killed several dozen people.
U.S. authorities accused David Headley, 49 and a U.S. citizen, of hatching the plot in late 2008 to attack the paper and said he posted to an Internet discussion group that he felt "disposed toward violence" because of the published cartoons.
Dubbing the scheme the "Mickey Mouse Project," Headley traveled twice to Denmark this year where he visited two offices of the Danish newspaper -- in Copenhagen and Arhus -- taking video and posing as a potential advertiser on behalf of a Chicago business, First World Immigration Services.
That business is owned by Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 48 and a Canadian citizen, who was arrested on October 18 at his home in Chicago on a charge of conspiracy for discussing potential targets with Headley and helping him make travel plans, the Justice Department said.
Headley also traveled to Pakistan where he met with a leader of a group with ties to al Qaeda, Harakat-ul Jihad Islami, and communicated with members of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba about plans to attack the newspaper, the U.S. government said.
He was arrested on October 3 as he was about to fly from Chicago to Pakistan. He also had a ticket to Copenhagen from the United States on October 29, though a Danish official said they did not believe an attack was imminent.
"This is an investigation that is ongoing. We will continue to cooperate very closely with the FBI but also with security services in a number of other countries to curb the threat," Jakob Scharf, head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET), told a news conference in a Copenhagen suburb.
The U.S. Justice Department said there was no imminent danger in the Chicago area and that the arrests were unrelated to other recent terrorism cases, including one involving an Afghan man arrested in Colorado, Najibullah Zazi, for plotting to detonate bombs in the United States.
SCALED BACK ATTACK PLAN
In an interview with FBI agents after being arrested in Chicago, Headley said that he proposed scaling back the plot to kill the cultural editor and the cartoonist rather than attack the newspaper's building, an FBI affidavit said.
He also told them that he had worked with Lashkar-e-Taiba previously and received training from them. The group has been accused of last year's assault on Mumbai and was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States.
Lawyers for Headley were not immediately available for comment while Rana's lawyer, Patrick Blegen, said his client "adamantly denies the charges and eagerly awaits his opportunity to contest them in court and to clear his and his family's name."
Blegen said he would seek his client's release on bond on Wednesday at a hearing. If convicted, Headley faces life in prison and Rana faces up to 15 years in prison. The Justice Department said its investigation was also continuing.
The re-publication of the cartoon in several newspapers sparked violent protests in Muslim countries in 2006, prompting the newspaper to apologize, though the Danish government defended the paper's right to freedom of expression. Continued... http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE59Q2SV20091027
Edited 10/29/2009 6:07 am ET by rollmops2009

I know, but I also think it was mishandled by the Danish PM at the time. There really is a vast cultural gap when it comes to freedom of the press and the rule of law. Both concepts are very important to Danes, but especially the free press is almost incomprehensible to most Arabs.
Just this AM, I was discussing it with a Syrian friend. She is cosmopolitan and educated, but she still could not understand how the Danish government could not have clamped down on the newspaper. She found that very odd.
Once I explained it, she understood the idea, but she still found it strange that a paper could insult a person or religion with impunity.
Of course, the editor who ran the cartoons was later invited to spend some time at AEI (American Enterprise Institute), and the paper is staunchly right wing.
Yes, the Brits have an attitude and humor very much like the Danes. Must be a viking trait. ;)
On the latter point, yes, I think it is a distinct possibility. The editor, Flemming Rose, was stationed in Moscow in the late 80s and then in DC for the first part of the 90s. Presumably he got to know people in both postings.