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Denmark, Germany arrest terror suspects, including alleged Hamas members, authorities say
Denmark and Germany announced Thursday the arrests of several terror suspects, including alleged Hamas members suspected of plotting attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions in Europe over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
The announcements were issued separately and it was unclear how the arrests were connected and if they were the result of coordinated actions, or even possibly one operation spanning the continent.
Danish police said three people were arrested across Denmark while a fourth person was detained in the Netherlands on suspicion of plotting to carry out “an act of terror.”
Officials in Copenhagen did not provide any details beyond saying the arrests had “threads abroad” and were “related to criminal gangs,” singling out the banned, predominantly immigrant gang Loyal to Familia that had long been behind feuds, violence, robberies, extortion and drug sales in the Danish capital.
However, Flemming Drejer, the operative head of Denmark’s Security and Intelligence Service, cryptically said police had “a special focus” on Jewish institutions. He said Denmark was not changing its terror threat level, which has been at “serious,” the second-highest level, since 2010.
“Persons abroad have been charged. … It is a serious situation,” Drejer told a news conference, adding that the arrests were carried out in “collaboration with our foreign partners” and that those arrested were part of “a network.”
The suspects would face a custody hearing within 24 hours, he said, likely behind “double closed doors” meaning he could not give any details about the case.
“This is extremely serious,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Thursday from Brussels where she was attending a European Union summit.
“It is of course completely unacceptable in relation to Israel and Gaza, that there is someone who takes a conflict somewhere else in the world into Danish society,” she added.
In the Netherlands, police said a 57-year-old Dutch man was arrested in the city of Rotterdam, based on a request from German authorities, according to spokesman Jesse Brobbel. On Tuesday, the Dutch counterterrorism agency raised the country’s threat alert to its second-highest level, saying the possibility of an attack in the country is now “substantial.”
In Germany, authorities said three suspected members of the Palestinian militant Hamas group who were allegedly planning attacks on Jewish institutions in Europe were arrested on Thursday.
Two men were arrested in Berlin and one in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, while a fourth suspect was temporarily detained in Berlin, Germany’s federal prosecutor said. Authorities only identified the men by their first names and the first initial of their last name, in line with German privacy rules.
The four were Abdelhamid Al A., born in Lebanon; Egyptian national Mohamed B.; Dutch national Nazih R. and Ibrahim El-R., born in Lebanon.
The authorities alleged three of the men “have been longstanding members of Hamas and have participated in Hamas operations abroad.” They said the suspects were “closely linked to the military branch’s leadership” of Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann thanked the authorities for the arrests and said that “attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions have also increased in our country in recent weeks” due to the Israel-Hamas war.
In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office lauded what it said were seven Hamas suspects arrested in Europe, but attributed the arrests to Danish police.
The prime minister’s office said Denmark had arrested seven operatives acting on behalf of Hamas and “thwarted an attack aimed at killing innocent citizens on European soil.” Netanyahu’s office said Israel’s intelligence agencies “will continue to operate … in order to repel the intentions of Hamas and eliminate its capabilities.”
The discrepancies between the Danish, German and Israeli statements could not immediately be resolved.
Earlier this month, the European Union’s home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson, warned that Europe faced a “huge risk of terrorist attacks” over the Christmas holiday period due to the fallout from the fighting in Gaza.
Denmark’s foreign intelligence service, known as FE, said Thursday in its annual assessment for 2023 that “the war between Israel and Hamas has once again shown that unresolved conflicts in Europe’s immediate area can escalate rapidly and create widespread regional instability.”
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Sen. Thom Tillis says “the scope” of Helene damage in North Carolina “is more like Katrina”
As recovery missions and repairs continue in North Carolina more than a week after Hurricane Helene carved a path of devastation through the western part of the state, the state’s Republican Sen. Thom Tillis called for more resources to bolster the relief effort and likened the damage to Hurricane Katrina’s mark on Louisiana in 2005.
“This is unlike anything that we’ve seen in this state,” Tillis told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday morning. “We need increased attention. We need to continue to increase the surge of federal resources.”
Hurricane Helene ripped through the Southeast U.S. after making landfall in Florida on Sept. 26 as a powerful Category 4 storm. Helene brought heavy rain and catastrophic flooding to communities across multiple states, including Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, with North Carolina bearing the brunt of the destruction. Officials previously said hundreds of roads in western North Carolina were washed out and inaccessible after the storm, hampering rescue operations, and several highways were blocked by mudslides.
Tillis said Sunday that most roads in the region likely remained closed due to flooding and debris. Water, electricity and other essential services still have not been fully restored.
“The scope of this storm is more like Katrina,” he said. “It may look like a flood to the outside observer, but again, this is a landmass roughly the size of the state of Massachusetts, with damage distributed throughout. We have to get maximum resources on the ground immediately to finish rescue operations.”
Hurricane Katrina left more than 1,000 people dead after it slammed into Louisiana’s Gulf Coast in August 2005, flooding neighborhoods and destroying infrastructure in and around New Orleans as well as in parts of the surrounding region. It was the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. in the last 50 years, and the costliest storm on record.
The death toll from Hurricane Helene is at least 229, CBS News has confirmed, with at least 116 of those deaths reported in North Carolina alone. Officials have said they expect the death toll to continue to rise as recovery efforts were ongoing, and a spokesperson for the police department in Asheville told CBS News Friday their officers were “actively working 75 cases of missing persons.”
On Saturday, the U.S. Department of Transportation released $100 million in emergency funds for North Carolina to rebuild the roads and bridges damaged by the hurricane.
“We are providing this initial round of funding so there’s no delay getting roads repaired and reopened, and re-establishing critical routes,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. “The Biden-Harris administration will be with North Carolina every step of the way, and today’s emergency funding to help get transportation networks back up and running safely will be followed by additional federal resources.”
President Biden previously announced that the federal government would cover “100%” of costs for debris removal and emergency protective measures in North Carolina for six months.
With North Carolina leaders working with a number of relief agencies to deal with the aftermath of the storm, Tillis urged federal officials to ramp up the resources being funneled into the state’s hardest-hit areas. The senator also addressed a surge in conspiracy theories and misinformation about the Biden Administration’s disaster response, which have been fueled by Republican political figures like former President Donald Trump.
Trump falsely claimed that Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent in the November presidential election, were diverting funds from Federal Emergency Management Agency that would support the relief effort in North Carolina toward initiatives for immigrants. He also said baselessly that the administration and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, were withholding funds because many communities that were hit hardest are predominantly Republican. Elon Musk has shared false claims about FEMA, too.
“Many of these observations are not even from people on the ground,” Tillis said of those claims. “I believe that we have to stay focused on rescue operations, recovery operations, clearing operations, and we don’t need any of these distractions on the ground. It’s at the expense of the hard-working first responders and people that are just trying to recover their lives.”
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