Denmark 2021
06/02/2021: A major anti-terror operation was conducted by PET in cooperation with German police between Feruary 6, and February 8, 2021 against a group of people suspected of "having planned one or more terrorist attacks or participated in attempted terrorism." 14 suspects were arrested and especially three Syrian brothers who purchased large quantities of chemicals that can be used to make explosives. One of them is in Germany thus, 13 persons were arrested on the Danish side. The chemicals were reportedly purchased from a dealer in Poland in quantities so large that it caught the eye of German Intelligence services. They all pleaded not guilty. (Source)
15/03/2021: The 2021 Assessment of the Terrorist Threat to Denmark was published by local authorities. Following the Covid-19 pandemic crisis and the terrorist attacks in France and Austria back in 2020, Danish authorities stated that terrorist threat remains “serious” and that militant Islamists still constitute the most significant terrorist threat against Denmark. The threat emanates in particular from individuals who sympathize with and are inspired by foreign militant Islamist terrorist groups, especially from IS and Al-Qaeda. (Source)
18/03/2021: The Odense Court sentenced a 31-year-old man named Daba Kora of Gambian background, to two years in prison and permanent expulsion from Denmark for support and incitement to terrorism and attempted terrorism financing. Kora was among the group of twenty-one individuals arrested by Danish forces on December 11, 2019 during a major nationwide anti-terror operation. He denied all the charges and claimed that he was merely very interested in what was said in the IS execution videos that he had downloaded and forwarded. However the indictmend showed that he displayed a keen interest in bomb-making, deadly poisons, the use of weapons, knives, fighting techniques and the killing of Western hostages by IS members that he failed to explain convicingly. (Source)
14/04/2021: It was reported by Kurdish authorities in Northeastern Syria running the al-Hol camp that Ojone Igala, wife of Denmark's "top terrorist'" internationally wanted since February 2013 Basil Hassan, has vanished with her two children. Although Basil Hassan is presumed dead since 2017, his relatives remain a threat as Igala did not seem to display any sign of awareness or remorse regarding her husband's misdeeds when Danish authorities paid her a visit at al-Hol camp. She was placed in March 2020 on the Dutch list of people under sanctions due to their connection to terrorist organizations Her disappearance is even more worrisome for Center for Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute in the United States Director Jason Blazakis, who emphasizes on the threat posed by IS wives who might join the networks of their husbands abroad. Swedish terrorism expert, Magnus Ranstorp shared the same concerns. (Source)
27/04/2021: The East Jutland Police, in collaboration with PET and Copenhagen Police, carried out an arrest and search operation at several addresses in the Aarhus area and in Copenhagen and managed to arrest six suspects, four of whom were in the Aarhus area and two in Copenhagen. They are men aged 27 to 35 and five of them are charged with financing terrorism. (Source)
19/05/2021: Danish PET published a report regarding a political agreement in March 2021 following which Denmark established a task force to assess whether the evacuation of Danish children from camps in northeastern Syria, without their mothers, could be safely conducted within the country’s international legal obligations. The initial conclusion was that such a separation would be practically very difficult, primarily because of the lack of consent from both the mothers and the local authorities. Consequently, the Ministry of Justice asked PET to assess the broader security implications of evacuating both the mothers and their children. The threat posed by individuals who traveled to the Syrian-Iraqi conflict zone remains significant. According to the Center for Terrorism Analysis (CTA), returnees—both men and women—could pose a threat not only through potential attack planning but also by spreading radical ideologies, supporting terrorist logistics, financing terrorism, and engaging in other terror-related activities. Although no one has successfully left Denmark to join militant groups in the conflict zone since 2016, those who remain in detention camps are seen as increasingly radicalized, with deteriorating conditions fostering deeper extremist sympathies.
Regarding the children, the CTA notes that young children are unlikely to pose an immediate terrorist threat. However, older children who have spent extended periods in radicalized environments could be vulnerable to indoctrination, and the longer they stay in such conditions, the higher the risk becomes. Reintegration and deradicalization support in Denmark would be crucial to counter this threat. Security in the Syrian camps, particularly in al-Hol, has worsened significantly, with a marked presence of Islamic State elements spreading extremist ideologies among detainees through violence and coercion. Escape attempts have increased, and IS networks are believed to actively smuggle individuals out of the camps. These dynamics present an ongoing risk that Danish nationals could flee the camps without control or monitoring, creating a heightened security concern for Denmark. PET evaluates that the three Danish women currently detained with their children are probably radicalized and might continue to support militant Islamist ideologies. Although there is no concrete information suggesting that these women received weapons training or directly participated in combat, their potential to radicalize others upon returning to Denmark is considered a primary risk.
While keeping the women in the camps could reduce their influence on Danish Islamist environments in the short term, the risk of long-term radicalization and unmonitored return is deemed more dangerous. Since Denmark cannot legally refuse their entry and the women have expressed a clear desire to return, PET concludes that evacuating them alongside their children under controlled conditions, followed by prosecution and intensive deradicalization efforts, would present fewer security uncertainties than leaving them in Syria. The assessment stresses that any decision carries inherent risks, and the possibility of unforeseen terrorist acts cannot be entirely eliminated. Nevertheless, the recommendation is to evacuate the three women and their children together, prosecute the women under Danish anti-terrorism laws, and provide structured reintegration support for the children to minimize future threats to national security. (Source)
25/08/2021: The Danish woman arrested upon her return from Syria back in July 2020, was sentenced to five years in prison for promoting terrorism and for traveling to Syria to join IS and supported their terrorist activities. She did not plead guilty and even denied having been in Syria claiming instead to have stayed in Egypt and Türkiye with her boyfriend despite evidence confirming her presence in IS-controlled territory. (Source)
29/08/2021: Danish media Jyllands-Posten revealed that only prisoners who have been convicted under Section 114 of the Danish Criminal Code on terrorism are automatically offered a deradicalization course which is surprising to experts such as criminologist Kasper Fisker who worked with anti-radicalization in the Danish Police Intelligence Service. He deems that : "When the system has punished a person for a crime, we have an obligation to try to prevent the convicted person from doing it again". Since convictions for supporting Islamist terrorism are similar to other forms of crime and vandalism notably racism, prisoners can participate in an anti-radicalization program even if they have been convicted of another crime than terrorism. (Source)
10/09/2021: The Supreme Court increased the sentence of Umut Olgun the Turkish man who supplied drone equipment to IS and who was sentenced by the Eastern High Court to eight years in prison and deportation from the country in September 2020. Henceforth, he is sentenced to ten years of prison with a permanent entry ban following his deportation. Concerning the other defendants, the Eastern Hight Court verdict was upheld by the Supreme Court. (Source)
17/09/2021: The Copenhagen City Court sentenced Adam Touhou, 29-year-old, to six years in prison and stripped of his Danish citizenship for recruiting a man to IS, thus making him the first person to be convicted in the High Court of recruiting another person to terrorism. The recruitment for which Adam Touhou is convicted occurred when he wrote messages on Facebook in 2013 to his childhood friend, Hafed Matoussi, a Tunisian man from Aarhus, in which he encouraged him to go to Syria and join IS. Matoussi was was sentenced to three years in prison by the Western High Court in 2018 for his two-week stay in the Caliphate, where he was trained in the use of weapons and was also permanently deported. Touhou, who pleaded not guilty, immediately appealed the verdict. (Source)
28/09/2021: Abdullah Akbulut, the 24-year-old man who was arrested in April 2020 for purchasing ammunition to commit terrorist attacks was sentenced by the Court in Frederiksberg to ten years in prison and deportation to Türkiye upon his release as he will be stripped from his Danish citizenship. He was charged with planning terrorist attacks on February 15, 2021 but considering the lack of a concrete plan at the stage of his arrest, his sentenced was reduced to ten years instead of the twelve-years sentence normally stated by the Law. His lawyer tried to pass him off as mentally challenged to lower the sentence since his IQ is reportedly lower than his siblings and common people yet it is actually not low enough to be considered as intellectually deficient. He appealed the verdict. (Source)
07/10/2021: Three Danish women and 14 children came back to Denmark from the Kurdish-controlled al-Roj camp in Northern Syria as it was announced by the Government on May 15, 2021. They have joined IS in 2014 and settled in the Caliphate taking their children along. Nine of the 14 children were born in Denmark and the five youngest children were born in Syria. One of the women has dual citizenship, while the other two are ethnic Danes. Five Danish children remain in Syria but since their mothers were stripped of their Danish citizenship and that they refused to part with their children, the cannot expect to be repatriated. (Source)
24/11/2021: The Copenhagen City Court sentenced a 26-year-old man named Saad Magedy Saad Ali Shahien to ten years in prison for preparing to commit a terrorist attack. He was arrested on December 11, 2019, after he had just purchased two pistols with silencers, six magazines and 750 rounds of ammunition in the parking lot of the Field's shopping center on Amager. The seller turned out to be an undercover agent from PET. Prior to purchasing the weapon, Shahien had been interested in buying as many bullets and silencers as possible. According to the police, this was because he intended to kill random people in a terrorist attack at an unknown location. Previously, PET had spent almost six months working on the defendant, who was suspected of belonging to the radicalized Islamist milieu in Denmark. The case also concerned another co-defendant close to Shahien who was acquitted on November 8, 2021 by the District Court of having participated in attempted terrorism. At first, the prosecution tried to appeal the verdict but has since given up trying to have him convicted of attempted terrorism as the District Court emphasized that he had left the religious environment in 2016. They did not find it proven that he was radicalized or that he was aware of his friend's terrorist plans. But he was convicted of having given Shahien 7,000 kroner to buy the weapons and thus being a party to their purchase. This resulted in the Court sentencing him to two years and nine months in prison. He was also given a warning about deportation. However, Shahien denies any wrongdoing and immediately appealed to the Eastern High Court. (Source)
10/12/2021: Sille Bøgild Hansen returned to Denmark with her three young children from Afghanistan where she promoted the activities of the terrorist organization Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) during her stay between June 23, 2017 and May 1, 2021. She was arrested when she landed at Copenhagen Airport and her three children were handed over to the social authorities. (Source)