German Police Detain Two Afghans Accused of Plotting Quran Burning Revenge Attack

The pair made preparations for an attack on police and other people near the parliament in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, “in close coordination” with IS members, including doing online research of the location and tried unsuccessfully to procure weapons, the statement said. The attack never materialized.

Anti-Islam activists have carried out a string of public desecrations of the Quran in Sweden, sparking outrage among Muslims around the world and threats from Islamic extremists. In October, a gunman killed two Swedish soccer fans before a match in Brussels.

Swedish authorities had raised the terror alert to its second-highest level in August. They were concerned of a similar escalation as the fury Denmark faced from Muslim countries in 2006, following the publication of newspaper caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

Danish consulates and embassies were burned and the cartoonists faced death threats from radical Islamists. Danish officials´ attempts to explain how such caricatures were protected under freedom of speech were widely dismissed in the Muslim world.