Swedish police arrest four on suspicion of plotting terrorist attack

Arts centre in Gothenburg evacuated after police received threat, before suspects were held in raid Swedish police have arrested four people on suspicion of preparing a terror attack and have evacuated an arts centre in the country’s second largest city. The four were arrested in Gothenburg and were suspected of plotting terrorism, security police spokesman Stefan Johansson said. It was not immediately clear whether the arrests were linked to the 10-year anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US. Police in Gothenburg said they had evacuated an arts centre in the city overnight on Sunday due to a threat deemed to pose “serious danger for life, health or substantial damage of property”. They said they had assisted security police with the arrest and declined to give any further comments. Mia Christersdotter Norman, the head of the Roda Sten arts centre in Gothenburg said about 400 people were celebrating the opening of an international biennial for contemporary art when police ordered everyone to leave the building. “Around midnight I was called out by the police and they said there was a threat to the building and asked us to quietly stop the party, which we did and everyone left,” Christersdotter Norman told Associated Press. “Police have searched the building but they didn’t find anything,” she said, adding the arts center would re-open as usual on Sunday. Sweden raised its terror threat alert level from low to elevated in October last year. In December, suicide bomber Taimour Abdulwahab blew himself up in downtown Stockholm among panicked Christmas shoppers, injuring two people, causing shock in a country that had largely been insulated from terrorism. The 2007 drawing of the prophet Muhammad by a Swedish cartoonist, Lars Vilks, raised tensions. In May, Vilks was assaulted while giving a speech in Uppsala, and an unsuccessful attempt was made to burn down his home. 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, the Sapo security agency had downplayed the risk of terror attacks in the Nordic country. Activity among radicalised 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 the September 11 attacks, but in the wake of the killing spree in Norway in July by Anders Behring Breivik – a rightwing, anti-immigrant Norwegian – the European police agency said it was setting up a taskforce to help investigate non-Islamist threats in Scandinavian countries. Meanwhile in the US, as the final touches were being put in place for Sunday’s commemoration of the anniversary at Ground Zero, heightened security was clearly visible on the streets of Manhattan. All lorries were being stopped on George Washington Bridge and there was increased security at all other bridges and tunnels. Police roadblocks were set up at key intersections of the city, including 59th Street and Lexington Avenue. A roadblock was set up in the middle of Times Square itself, and on main cross-streets leading into it, causing virtual gridlock. On Friday, vehicle checkpoints were in place in key locations across New York, with police stopping vans and lorries passing through the city in response to specific and credible intelligence that a car bomb was planned to disrupt the 10th anniversary of 9/11. On Thursday night, Hillary Clinton said the plot originated with al-Qaida and its target was New York and Washington. She said the threat had been made public so as to activate a “great network of unity and support” against those who would wreak violence on innocent people. “It is a continuing reminder of the stakes in our struggle against extremism,” she said. One of the key findings of the 9/11 commission report that looked at the events leading up to the attacks on New York and Washington 10 years ago was that there were ample warnings in the weeks leading up to it of a massive attack in the pipeline, yet the intelligence was not acted upon and shared between agencies. Sweden Europe Global terrorism Ed Pilkington Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk

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