COPENHAGEN, Sept 4: Danish police claimed on Tuesday to have averted a terrorist attack with the arrest overnight of eight men allegedly linked to Al Qaeda and in possession of explosives.

The director general of the Danish intelligence service PET, Jakob Scharf, said the arrests near Copenhagen had “prevented a terrorist attack.”

“We would describe the main suspects as militant Islamists with international contacts, including leading members of Al Qaeda,” Scharf told a press conference.

The eight suspects, aged 19 to 28, were of foreign backgrounds — from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Turkey — and six of them held Danish citizenship, he said.

The men had all lived in Denmark for an extended period of time, Scharf said, adding that their process of radicalisation had taken place in part in Denmark.

He would not disclose any information about the possible target of the planned attack, but said there was “no direct link” to Denmark’s military involvement in Iraq or Afghanistan. There was no connection either to the caricatures that were printed in a Danish newspaper in September 2005 and sparked angry Muslim protests around the world.

The PET said the eight were “suspected of preparing a terrorist act with the use of explosives.”

Police raided 11 homes in the early hours of Tuesday, after an investigation which had been under way for several months and during which the PET cooperated with foreign intelligence agencies.—AFP