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2008-02-12 08:59:28
Danish police have arrested five people suspected of planning to attack a cartoonist who drew caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Denmark's intelligence agency (Pet) said the arrests were made in the Aarhus region at 0430 (0330 GMT) "to prevent a murder linked to terrorism".
Three of those detained were Danes and the other two were foreigners.
The pictures in Denmark's biggest daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005 sparked deadly worldwide protests.
Muslims regard any visual representation of Muhammad as blasphemous.
'Concrete plans'
The intelligence agency said the detentions were made "after lengthy surveillance".
I have turned fear into anger and resentment
Kurt Westergaard
Cartoonist
It did not identify the target of the alleged plot, but the online edition of Jyllands-Posten said its cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, was the focus.
The newspaper, based in Aarhus, said Mr Westergaard, 73, and his 66-year-old wife, Gitte, had been under police protection for the past three months.
In a statement on Jyllands-Posten's website, Mr Westergaard said: "Of course I fear for my life when the police intelligence service say that some people have concrete plans to kill me.
"But I have turned fear into anger and resentment."
The BBC's Thomas Buch-Andersen in Copenhagen says the arrests have stunned people in Denmark, where the furore over the cartoons was thought to have passed.
Mr Westergaard was one of 12 artists behind the drawings but he was responsible for what was considered the most controversial of the pictures.
The caricature featured the head of Islam's holiest prophet with a turban depicting a bomb with a lit fuse.
The cartoons were later reprinted by more than 60 newspapers, triggering a wave of protests in parts of the Muslim world.
The demonstrations culminated a year ago with the torching of Danish diplomatic offices in Damascus and Beirut and dozens of deaths in Nigeria, Libya and Pakistan.