Denmark's Somali Community: Breeding Ground for Extremists?

Denmark's small Somali community, which numbers about 16,000, has struggled for years to integrate more fully into a society that has grown more antagonistic toward immigrants like them. Then came the news that a man with an ax and knife allegedly burst into the home of Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard on Jan. 1 and threatened to kill him. Danish Somalis were aghast when authorities said the intruder was one of their own. "The Somalis in Denmark are shocked at what happened and strongly condemn it. They see it as the work of one man and don't understand how he could do a thing like that — someone who grew up in Denmark," says Abdirashid N. Artan, a social worker and chairman of the Somali Youth & Development Network, an organization that works with troubled young Somalis in Copenhagen, the Danish capital.But authorities and experts warn that Somali refugees living in Denmark, as well as elsewhere in Scandinavia, are more and more being drawn to radical Islamic groups because of their difficulties in starting a new life in their adopted country and the increasingly xenophobic tone of right-wing politicians, like those from the Danish People's Party. The Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) says the 28-year-old who allegedly broke into Westergaard's home, identified by Kenyan police as Mohammed Muhideen Gelle, had close links to the Somali militant group al-Shabab, which controls large parts of southern Somalia and has been listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department. PET also says he is "suspected of having been involved in terror-related activities" during a recent stay in eastern Africa. Gelle was arrested by police in Kenya last August, prior to a Kenya visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and held for seven weeks on suspicions of having ties to terrorist groups. He was later released because of a lack of evidence and deported to Denmark, where he's lived since he was a teenager. The incident at Westergaard's home came two months after another young Danish-Somali man detonated a suicide bomb at a graduation ceremony in Mogadishu, killing 24 people, including four ministers. According to news reports, the man had spent 20 years in Denmark before returning to Somalia — and may also have been involved with al-Shabab. (The group has denied responsibility for the attack.) But Somalia's Environment Minister, Buri Hamza, told Danish television last month that he believed the man was first drawn to extremists in Denmark. "We're afraid that this Danish-Somali has been brainwashed right here in Denmark," Hamza told the TV2 channel.

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