Easily Offended Theists Caught Plotting Murder

Posted by Atheist Under Ur Bed on October 28th, 2009

Danish Cartoons Terror Plot Foiled (The Australian/AFP/The Times; Oct 29)

US prosecutors say they have broken up an international terror plot, codenamed the Mickey Mouse Project, against the Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

The criminal complaint, unsealed yesterday, alleges that Chicago-based men spent at least a year working with a Pakistan-based terrorist group to plan an attack.

Two men from Chicago, who went to military school in Pakistan, face terrorism charges for allegedly targeting the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which outraged hardline Muslims by publishing the 12 cartoons in 2005.

The men allegedly planned to kill cultural editor Flemming Rose and cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. The editor of Jyllands-Posten, Jorn Mikkelsen, said the alleged plot was “very unpleasant for the employees and we are all affected by these threats”.

Jyllands-Posten, Denmark’s highest-circulation daily, triggered a furore in the Muslim world by publishing the cartoons.

Demonstrators burned Danish flags in protests that culminated in February 2006 with the torching of Danish diplomatic offices in Damascus and Beirut and the deaths of dozens of people in Nigeria, Libya and Pakistan.

David Headley, 49, a US citizen who changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006, was arrested at O’Hare International Airport, Chicago, on October 3. Court papers say he hatched the plot last year and posted a message about the cartoons on an internet discussion group, saying: “I feel disposed toward violence for the offending parties.”

After his arrest, Mr Headley allegedly told FBI agents he began receiving training in 2006 from Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Pakistan terror group blamed for the Mumbai terror attacks last year. He also worked with a Pakistani with al-Qa’ida links named Ilyas Kashmiri, who was later reported killed in a US drone attack.

In January, Individual A, another Lashkar-e-Toiba contact in Pakistan, allegedly urged Mr Headley by email to carry out what he called the Mickey Mouse Project “as early as possible”.

Court papers said Mr Headley told FBI agents he went to Denmark in January and July this year to carry out surveillance on the newspaper’s offices in Copenhagen and Arhus “in preparation for an attack to be carried out by persons associated with Kashmiri and Individual A”. Between trips he allegedly met Individual A in Pakistan.

The complaint alleges: “Headley stated that he proposed the operation against the newspaper be reduced from attacking the entire building in Copenhagen to killing the paper’s cultural editor, Flemming Rose, and the cartoonist who drew a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, Kurt Westergaard, who Headley felt were directly responsible for the cartoons.”

Mr Headley is charged with conspiracy to commit terrorist acts involving murder and maiming outside the US, which carries a life sentence.

While in Denmark he allegedly posed as a potential advertiser on behalf of a business run by Tahawwur Hussain Rana. Mr Rana, 48, who was arrested in Chicago on October 18, faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of lending material support to a terrorist conspiracy.

US and Danish officials called the plot a serious, but not immediate, threat.

“We don’t think that an attack has been immediate, but there has been very specific planning in order to carry out serious terrorist attacks in Denmark,” said Jakob Scharf, the head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service.

Mr Scharf, who noted that one of the men “has very extensive contacts with leading militant extremists in Pakistan”, said more arrests could be made.

“This case is a reminder that the threat posed by international terrorist organisations is global in nature and requires constant vigilance at home and abroad,” said David Kris, Assistant Attorney-General for National Security.