Danish Teen Converts to Islam, Becomes Denmark's First Female Terrorist

For the first time in its history, Denmark has charged a woman with terrorism. The morbid debut involves a 16-year-old Danish girl, who converted to Islam and intended to blow up a historic Jewish school.

The girl was arrested in January 2016 for possessing explosives. Later it emerged that the explosive TATP (which is also known as acetone peroxide and was used in the November 2015 Paris attacks) was meant to be used in an attack against two schools in Denmark, Danish Radio reported.

Due to the delicate nature of the case and the amount of sensitive information, much of the data in the so-called "Kundby case" (named after the village where the girl was arrested) has been withheld from the public. The court hearings are being held behind "double-locked" doors.

Last Friday, the Copenhagen Public Prosecutor's Office announced that the 16-year-old girl has been charged with an attempted terror attack for her plans to bomb the private Jewish school Carolineskolen in Copenhagen together with her own school, Sydskolen in Fårevejle. The girl was reportedly far along with her preparations to make a bomb. She was also planning a test explosion, which constituted solid grounds for terrorism charges. The trial will begin in April, and the 16-year-old is facing a minimum four-year sentence.

"This case says something about what we are fighting against: that the disease of jihadism and extremism is something that can affect anyone," Conservatives spokesman and renowned critic of radical Islam Naser Khader, who recently made headlines after confessing a female relative had sworn allegiance to Daesh (ISIS/ISIL), told Danish Radio. "A girl of Viking background, who did not live in a ghetto area, has been recruited to carry out an act of terrorism. This is all very serious," he added.

In the same announcement issued by the Prosecutor's Office, a 25-year-old man who had previously been arrested in connection with the case was released without any charges filed against him, despite having reportedly fought alongside extremists in Syria and being previously described as a "friend" of the girl.

The girl, who was only 15 at the time of her arrest, was described as a recent convert to Islam. One of her neighbors told the Danish tabloid newspaper BT that she aspired to convert fellow Danes to her newly-found religion as well.

According to Danish TV channel TV2, the girl's profile on the social media indicated that she was a member of a Facebook group for Danish supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is a radical Islamist organization openly supporting the establishment of a hardline caliphate. Previously, Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has been the focal point of many controversies, was banned from using municipal premises.

Carolineskolen is a private Jewish school in Copenhagen, where in addition to the usual curriculum, students also receive instruction in Hebrew. The school was founded in 1802 and claims to be one of the oldest functioning Jewish schools in the world. Previously, the school has repeatedly been targeted by anti-Semites, who smashed windows and sprayed its walls with ethnic slurs.

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