Norway raises terror threat level over risks to Israeli and Jewish interests

Norway has elevated its terrorism threat assessment to the second-highest level, due to an increased risk of attacks targeting Jewish and Israeli interests within the country, the national police directorate announced.

In the past week, authorities in Denmark, which is a neighbor of Norway, charged two individuals suspected of detonating hand grenades near Israel's embassy in Copenhagen, while in Sweden, police were investigating a potential shooting incident near the Israeli diplomatic mission in Stockholm, reported Reuters.

Following the decision by the Norwegian Police Security Service, or PST, to raise the threat level across the country, police officers, normally unarmed, will now carry guns.

A statement from the directorate said: "PST raises the terror threat level in Norway from moderate to high as a result of the ongoing escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.

"It is primarily the threat to Jewish and Israeli targets that has been further intensified."

The PST elevated its risk assessment from level three, considered "moderate", to level four, deemed "high", on its five-tier scale. The highest level on this scale would signify an imminent threat.

Benedicte Bjoernland, director of Norway's security services, stated that the likelihood of terrorist incidents in the country had increased.

"Going forward, we will be paying increased attention to the fact that state actors can use criminal networks to carry out terrorist acts, and what consequences this has for the police's efforts against these organizations," she said. "We have a number of measures in place to protect the population."

Sweden's intelligence services suspect that the attacks on the Israeli embassies in Copenhagen and Stockholm may have been carried out by local criminal networks acting on behalf of Iran, reported the BBC.

The incident in Stockholm on the evening of Sept 30 involved shots fired near the Israeli embassy, with no injuries reported. Two days later, in the early morning of Oct 2, two explosions occurred near Israel's embassy in central Copenhagen.

Later on Oct 2, two Swedish teenagers, aged 16 and 19, were arrested at Copenhagen's train station, one reportedly having bought tickets to Amsterdam. They were charged the next day, with possessing and detonating hand grenades near the Copenhagen embassy.

In August last year, Sweden elevated its terrorist alert to the second-highest level following Quran burnings that angered Muslim communities and prompted threats from jihadist groups.