(Updates with two of the arrested remanded in custody, paragraphs 13-14)

By Kim McLaughlin

COPENHAGEN, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Danish police arrested eight young Muslims in pre-dawn raids on Tuesday on suspicion of plotting a bomb attack and having links with al Qaeda.

Jakob Scharf, director of the Danish police's Security Intelligence Service, did not say what the alleged target was or in which country.

But he said it was the first such direct al Qaeda connection discovered in Denmark and that Danish intelligence had cooperated with unnamed foreign security services during an investigation that lasted several months.

"These are militant Islamists with connections to high-ranking members of al Qaeda," Scharf told a news conference. "We believe this was a serious situation."

Terror experts said Denmark was a target for extremists because of its military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and a crisis sparked last year after cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammad were published in a Danish newspaper.

"Denmark is on the extremists' radar screen for a number of different reasons -- the first one of course being the controversial Iraq engagement," Magnus Ranstorp, terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defence College, told Reuters.

Ranstorp said that a crackdown on asylum-seekers since 2001 and the Prophet cartoon crisis had further aggravated Denmark's exposure.

"For some, this could probably become a catalyst for wanting to exact a price for what they see as an onslaught on Islam."

IMPORTANT EVIDENCE

The Muslims arrested ranged from 19 to 29 years old. They came from Afghan, Pakistani, Somali and Turkish backgrounds and six were Danish citizens, Scharf said.

"Our investigation has shown that some of the suspects had acquired materials to make explosives," he said.

He did not say whether any explosives had been found but said important evidence had been discovered in the raids in central Copenhagen and its suburbs.

Scharf said the arrests underlined the intelligence service's belief that individuals and groups of people in Denmark had the will and capacity to launch attacks and that al Qaeda had recovered the strength to launch attacks in Europe.

Later on Tuesday, a Copenhagen court remanded two of the suspects -- the ones believed to be the main players -- in custody for 27 days. Suspects can be remanded in custody under preliminary charges for many months in Denmark, with the right to periodic hearings in court.

Scharf said the six others would most likely be released after questioning.

The arrests were the latest in a series of cases Danish authorities have pursued under anti-terrorism laws passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

A Copenhagen court sentenced a Danish Muslim youth to seven years in prison in February for planning an attack in Europe, but cleared three others. Prosecutors are seeking a retrial in one of the three acquittals.

Four other men are awaiting trial on charges of plotting a bomb attack in the Nordic country, which has about 450 troops in Afghanistan and recently scaled down its military presence in Iraq to a small contingent. (Additional reporting by Martin Burlund and Gelu Sulugiuc in Copenhagen and Sarah Edmonds in Stockholm)

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