Iranian intelligence planned an attack in Denmark that was foiled at the end of September, according to Denmark’s security services.
Denmark’s foreign minister called the allegations “totally unacceptable” and said that the government in Copenhagen would react to Iran as well as talk to other European countries about further action.
Bridges between Denmark and both Sweden and Germany were suddenly closed on September 28 while local police said they were searching for a Swedish-registered Volvo and three people “involved in a serious crime”.
“It is, in short, a case of an Iranian intelligence unit that in our view has planned an attack in Denmark,” Finn Borch Andersen, head of the Danish security and intelligence service, said on Tuesday.
The targets of the planned attack were three Iranians living in Ringsted – a town about 60kn south-west of Copenhagen — who are believed to belong to a separatist group Al-Ahvaziya, which is regarded by Tehran as a terrorist organisation.
A Norwegian citizen of Iranian origin was arrested on October 21 for having helped Iranian intelligence in Denmark and is still in custody.
The planned attack in Denmark appears to have parallels with a foiled bombing on an Iranian opposition rally in the suburbs of Paris at the end of June. France earlier this month froze the assets of two Iranian nationals and the country’s intelligence services over alleged links to the foiled attack.