Dutch police arrest 7 suspected of planning attack

Dutch police arrest 7 suspected of planning attack

By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer Toby Sterling, Associated Press Writer Thu Mar 12, 6:25 pm ET

AMSTERDAM – Dutch police on Thursday arrested seven people suspected of preparing a terrorist attack in Amsterdam, including a relative of one of the attackers who died in the 2004 bombings in Madrid.

Mayor Job Cohen said police were acting on an anonymous tip that warned an Ikea outlet or other stores in the southeast of the city might be targeted.
"It wasn't a regular bomb warning, but a warning of a planned action aimed at creating casualties in shops," Cohen said.

"Men were planning to put explosives in the shops and wanted to cause casualties in busy places," he said.

Police received the tip Wednesday night from an unregistered cell phone in Belgium. The tip also included names of one suspect and locations for police to search.
Early Thursday, authorities shut down a major Amsterdam shopping street near the ArenA soccer stadium and sealed off the nearby Ikea store. A concert by the American band "The Killers" was canceled.

District Attorney Herman Bolhaar said six men and one woman, aged 19-64, were arrested in Amsterdam. All are Dutch nationals of Moroccan ancestry.
"As far as we can tell, none involved has a history of terrorist involvement," he said at a news conference, though one suspect is related to "a person who exactly five years ago was involved in the attack in Madrid."

Police Commissioner Bernard Welten said the suspect's relative died shortly after the Madrid attacks "as a result of a suicide action."
Names of the suspects were not released.

Law enforcement officials in Belgium and the Netherlands have raided a number of houses in the investigation. Police declined to say whether any explosives were found.
The Dutch anti-terrorism coordinator's office said national threat levels had not been changed as a result of Thursday's events.

Welten said he believed the arrests had "reduced the immediate threat" of an attack in Amsterdam, but that further arrests could not be ruled out. He said the area around the Ikea store was likely to remain sealed Friday.
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Associated Press Writer Mike Corder contributed to this story from The Hague.\


Personal comment:

The news story that I have selected for this weeks Current World Affair is about the Netherlands. Where a lot of people may think that it is a calm and small country that does not have to fear for any terrorist attacks, the story above shows it is not the case.

For the second time in a decade there has been a potential threat for bomb attacks in a crowded shopping area. Five years ago their was a bomb warning that there was a bomb hided in one out of ten IKEA stores in the Netherlands. After investigation it showed that there indeed was a bomb in one of the stores. It turned out that two Polish guys were responsable.

This time there was no bomb to be found. However, the seven people arrested show linkages with more threatning people/operations.

The problem I have with this story that I can not be 100% save even in my own coutry. Terrorist attacks do not only happen or threat the middle east or one of the bigger western countries. Even Holland some times have to deal with this kind of threats.

At the moment there is a large discussion going in Holland about the repsonse of the police to the threat of last week. Many people feel that the response was to big and to powerfull. Seven people got arrested and released again, and the entire potential bomb area was closed for more then a day.

I believe that the fact that a bomb has been found seven years ago shows that the government has to respond to this kind of threats with full power. Just in case there really is a bomb.

Source:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090312/ap_on_re_eu/eu_netherlands_terror_2/print