OSLO – Three men were arrested yesterday, suspected of planning attacks, and of having links to al-Qaeda and to people under investigation in the US and Britain, Norwegian police said.
Two of the men were arrested in the Oslo region while a third was arrested in Germany. “We believe this group has had links to people abroad who can be linked to al-Qaeda, and to people who are involved in investigations in other countries, among others the United States and Britain,” Police Security Service (PST) chief Janne Kristiansen said.
Ms Kristiansen did not give details of the plot nor say which country might have been the target of a planned attack.
Norway, which has troops in Afghanistan as part of a Nato-led mission, has never had an al-Qaeda-led attack on its soil.
She declined to say whether there was a link to arrests in the US and Britain. On Wednesday, the US charged five men with plotting to bomb New York city’s subway system and attack an unidentified target in Britain under orders from al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan.
British police on Wednesday arrested a 24-year-old terrorism suspect given leave to stay in Britain after a request from the US government for his extradition, police said.
US authorities want Abid Naseer, who in May won a battle against deportation to Pakistan to stand trial on charges of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organisation and conspiracy to use a destructive device.
Norwegian police said yesterday’s arrests were brought forward by fears details of the investigation would appear in public.
“We were afraid evidence would be destroyed, because we knew that an international media organisation was about to publish details of the case. That made it urgent to make the arrests,” Ms Kristiansen said.
The PST has today . . . apprehended three individuals suspected of having prepared terrorist acts,” it said in a statement.
One of the men was a 39-year-old Norwegian citizen of Uighur origin; another was a 37-year-old Iraqi citizen; and the third was a 31-year-old Uzbek citizen.
The Iraqi and the Uzbek both had permanent residency in Norway. – (Reuters)