Four men, allegedly belonging to suicide attack network, detained in Denmark

Four men were detained in Denmark on suspicion of belonging to a network planning a suicide terror attack in Europe, police said Friday. "It seems the plan was going into a closing phase," police spokesman Joern Bro said. The men, all Danish Muslims aged 16 to 20, were arrested Thursday morning.

At a court hearing late Thursday they were ordered held in jail until Nov. 16 as police continue the investigation, Bro said. He declined to give details, saying only the network had planned to carry out the suicide attack in Europe.

Danish media quoted Bro as saying that the arrests in Copenhagen were linked to an investigation in the Balkans in which arrests were made and large quantities of explosives were found on Oct. 19.

He did not specify where the Balkan investigation took place but Bosnian police last week said they arrested three people, a Turkish, Swedish and Bosnian national, in Sarajevo on suspicion of preparing terrorist activities. Police said they found explosives, firearms and other military equipment in connection with those arrests on Oct. 19-20.

According to Sarajevo's Dnevni Avaz daily newspaper, one of the three suspects was an 18-year-old who was preparing a suicide bomb attack on the Sarajevo embassy of an European Union country.

The Danish suspects, who were not identified, were ordered detained at a court hearing in Glostrup, a suburb of Copenhagen.

Police said they raided the suspects' homes in Copenhagen and suburbs of the capital, seizing computers, computer discs, books with radical Muslim literature and cellular phones. Police also found 200,000 kroner (Ђ27,000; US$32,400) in cash.

Some 25 people in all were briefly detained but only the four were arrested.

Denmark has not been hit by terrorists in 20 years, but fears have grown the Scandinavian country could face an attack after the July attacks on the London transit system. Like Britain, Denmark is part of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and has about 500 troops stationed there, the AP reports.

In the weeks after the bombings that killed 56 people in London, Danish police stepped up patrols at train and subway stations.

In 1985, a bomb detonated outside the offices of North West Orient airlines in Copenhagen, killing one person and wounding 16. Three Palestinians living in Sweden were convicted of planting the bombs and sentenced to life in prison in 1989.

T.E.