Monday, 12 September 2011
The four suspects who were arrested late on Saturday are in their twenties and are residents of Gothenburg.(File photo)
Neither Sweden’s intelligence agency nor the police have confirmed the report, and have released few details about the arrests.
“Police suspect the men were about to carry out a terrorist attack with firearms and bombs,” Gothenburg regional daily GT said in its online edition.
“Police sources have told GT the suspects are linked to the terror network Shabab,” the paper said, without disclosing its sources.
An elite counter-terrorism unit arrested four people in Gothenburg, Sweden’s second city, and evacuated hundreds of people from a building hosting an art fair “after concluding that there was a threat that could endanger lives or health or cause serious damage,” officials said Sunday.
Police then searched the building, breaking open several lockers, the paper said.
It is not known why the venue was seen as a target, and art fair organizers have not been given an explanation, GT said.
The paper speculated that it could have been because of a Swedish artist, Lars Vilks, who has received death threats from Shabab for his depiction of the Prophet Mohammed.
Vilks had said publicly he planned to attend the event but in the end did not.
He has faced numerous death threats and a suspected assassination plot since his drawing was first published by a Swedish regional newspaper in 2007, illustrating an editorial on the importance of freedom of expression.
“Wherever you are, if not today or tomorrow, know that we haven’t yet forgotten about you,” a Swedish Shabab member, Abu Zaid, said in a video, according to US monitoring group SITE in November 2010.
According to Swedish news agency TT, the four suspects arrested late Saturday are aged 23 to 26 and are residents of Gothenburg.
Three of the men are born in Africa and the fourth in the Middle East, it said. The man born in the Middle East and two of the Africa-born men are Swedish citizens while another holds a Swedish residency permit, it added.
Swedish intelligence agency SAPO issued a short statement on Monday saying all information concerning the ongoing investigation was classified.
“Saepo’s assessment is that there is no cause for widespread concern nor any reason to introduce tighter security measures,” it said.
Prosecutor Agnetha Hilding-Qvarnstroem must decide by Tuesday whether to ask a court to remand the suspects in custody or release them.
In December 2010, suicide bomber Taimour Abdulwahab blew himself up in downtown Stockholm among panicked Christmas shoppers, injuring two people and causing shock in a country that had largely been insulated from terrorism.
In May, Vilks was assaulted while giving a speech in Uppsala, and vandals unsuccessfully tried to burn down his home in southern Sweden. His cartoon was reportedly the inspiration for Abulwahab’s attack.
In a report detailing the extent of extremist Islamist networks in Sweden, ordered months before that attack, SAPO had downplayed the risk of terror attacks in the Nordic country. Activity among radicalized Muslims in Sweden is primarily directed toward supporting militants in other countries, including Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, it said.
Scandinavia has largely been focused on Islamic terrorism since September 11, but in the wake of Norway's terrorist attack by a right-wing anti-immigrant Norwegian, the European police agency said it was setting up a task force of more than 50 experts to help investigate non-Islamist threats in Scandinavian countries.
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