Denmark Terror Attacks: Police Killed Man Believe to Be Gunman at Muhammad Cartoonist Event, Synagogue
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She also made clear: "This is not a battle between Islam and the West, and it is not a battle between Muslims and non-Muslims, but a battle between the values of freedom for the individual and a dark ideology."
Denmark was on high alert earlier Sunday after two people were killed and five wounded in two shootings in Copenhagen within hours of each other. The shooters targeted a free speech event featuring an artist who had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad and a synagogue, bringing back the memories of last month's attack on satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in France.
A man dressed in a light gray jacket, black pants and black shoes approached two police officers near a synagogue and began shooting them Saturday night, according to CNN.
The gunman then shot a civilian multiple times in the head before fleeing the scene. The civilian later died, but the officers did not receive any life-threatening wounds.
Jews allegedly do not feel safe in Denmark. "It's just as unsafe in 2013 to be a Jew in Copenhagen as it is to be a Jew in an Arab country," said an editorial in IsraelNationalNews.com, which also noted that the Danish Jewish community documented 40 anti-Semitic incidents in 2012, almost double the number in 2009.
Hours earlier, on Saturday afternoon, a man sprayed bullets at a Copenhagen cafe that was hosting an event on freedom of speech and blasphemy that was attended by Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who had received death threats for his cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, and his supporters, according to Reuters.
"We feel certain now that it was a politically motivated attack, and thereby it was a terrorist attack," Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt was quoted as saying earlier.
European Council President Donald Tusk also called it "another brutal terrorist attack targeted at our fundamental values and freedoms, including the freedom of expression."
Police in the Danish capital were stopping cars and cordoning off sections of the city Sunday morning as police were hinting for the gunmen.
The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 editorial cartoons, most of them depicting Muhammad, in 2005, leading to protests around the world, including violent demonstrations and riots in some Muslim countries.
The gunman, said to be about 40 years old, fled in a carjacked Volkswagen Polo, which was later found abandoned a few miles away, according to The Associated Press.
Vilks believes he was the target of the attack.
"What other motive could there be? It's possible it was inspired by Charlie Hebdo," he was quoted as saying, referring to the Jan. 7 attack in Paris. "At first there was panic. People crawled down under tables. My bodyguards quickly pulled me away… I'm not shaken at all by this incident. Not the least."
Police spokesman Joergen Skov was quoted as saying the gunman had possibly planned the "same scenario" as in the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
The French ambassador, François Zimeray, who was at the free speech event, also compared the shooting to the January attacks in Paris.
Seventeen people, including journalists and police, were killed in three days of violence in France that began Jan. 7 with an attack on Charlie Hebdo.
The attacks in France ended Jan. 9 after police killed brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, the two alleged gunmen in the Charlie Hebdo attack, in a standoff just outside Paris where they had taken a woman hostage. Police also killed Ahmedy Coulibaly, a gunman involved in a deadly standoff at a kosher market in eastern Paris. The gunman had already killed four hostages.
Terrorist group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo attack.
