Danish police say that the arrests of four young Muslims stemmed from a terror investigation in Bosnia

Jan M. Olson:

The arrest of four young Muslims suspected of belonging to a network planning an imminent suicide attack in Europe stemmed from a terror investigation in Bosnia, Danish police said Friday.

In the Bosnian case, a Turk living in Denmark and a Swede originally from Serbia-Montenegro are under arrest in Sarajevo, and Bosnian police said they found explosives, firearms and other military equipment in connection with those arrests.

The Bosnian paper Slobodna Bosna said police also found a video cassette showing three masked men praying and asking God to forgive them for their self-sacrifice.

"We had a very short period to investigate but our information indicated that their action was imminent," said Danish police spokesman Joern Bro said, adding that investigators have asked Bosnian police about the alleged video recording.

"We don't know exactly what kind of terror (attack) they were planning but our information indicates that it could have been a suicide bomb," Bro said of the arrests in Bosnia, adding that the weapons found could also be used in a "sniper murder."

The four arrested Thursday at their homes in and around Copenhagen are aged 16 to 20. The suspects in Bosnia also are teenagers, the Swede, 19, and the Turk, 18. The four were in "close contact" with the two arrested in Bosnia; the Turk lived in Denmark, Bro said.

According to Sarajevo's Dnevni Avaz daily newspaper, one of the suspects detained in Bosnia was an 18-year-old preparing a suicide attack on the Sarajevo embassy of a European Union country.

Bro said one of the four men arrested in Denmark was a Danish citizen and the others were of Middle Eastern origin but police did not know their exact nationalities.

The three older suspects appealed the detention order Friday. Their lawyers did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

In raiding the suspects' homes, Danish police seized computers, computer discs, books with radical Muslim literature and cellular phones. Police also found $32,400 in cash.

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