Danes Arrest 3 Men Suspected of 'Preparing Terrorist Act'

April 27, 2012 — -- Danish intelligence officials arrested three men in their twenties suspected of "having been in the process of preparing a terrorist act," according to a statement from PET, the country's Security and Intelligence Service.

A 21-year old Danish citizen who lives in Egypt and two Copenhagen residents -- a 22-year-old Jordanian and a 23-year-old Turk -- were picked up from two locations in Copenhagen and charged with illegal possession of automatic weapons.

Intelligence officials also searched several locations after the arrests, but a spokesman for Copenhagen police declined to provide any additional information. The three are scheduled to appear in court tomorrow morning.

"The investigation will establish whether possible terror threats have been addressed and averted by the arrests," PET said in the statement.

Denmark has faced terror threats before, mostly linked to the publishing of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005.

Admitted American terrorist David Headley told a U.S. court that in addition to helping a Pakistani militant group plan the 2008 Mumbai massacre, he also scouted Jyllands-Posten's offices in Copenhagen for the possibility of an attack.

In May, a Chechen-born man was sentenced to 12 years in prison in Copenhagen for preparing a letter bomb believed to have been intended for the newspaper. In addition, four Swedish residents are currently on trial in Denmark for plotting a shooting spree on the newspaper.

Danish officials refused to disclose the target of those arrested today, or how close they came to executing an attack.

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