Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency helps bust Islamic State terrorist cell in Denmark

The Mossad first tracked the cell, whose members had fought for the Islamic State in Syria.

By Benjamin Kerstein, The Algemeiner

Israel’s famed Mossad intelligence agency recently helped bust a major terrorist cell in Denmark as part of an ongoing policy of collaboration with Western intelligence agencies, local media outlets reported on Sunday.

The Mossad first tracked the cell, whose members had fought for the Islamic State in Syria. Several of them were born in Denmark while the rest were Pakistanis with relatives in the country.

Mossad then passed the information to Danish security services, who began tracking the group themselves. The Danes placed the cell under surveillance for several weeks and then undertook a major operation, raiding safe houses in seven different cities.

Twenty-two terror operatives were arrested in the raids. The Danes uncovered evidence that the group was in possession of weapons and explosives for use in an imminent attack.

According to Hebrew news website Mako, despite the perception that many European countries often take politically hostile positions towards Israel, the Mossad is heavily involved in tracking and interdicting European-born Islamic State members and other jihadist terror operatives who have escaped the onslaught against these groups in Iraq and Syria and returned to Europe.

This is not the first time Israel has been involved in interdicting terror attacks in Europe, Mako said. The operations are the result of a process initiated under former Mossad director Meir Dagan, who believed Israel had to collaborate with Western intelligence sources in order to win its own war on terrorism.

Among the countries Israeli intelligence is now collaborating with are Britain, France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Bulgaria.