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Norway Announces 3 Arrests in Terrorist Plot

08 July 2010 17:59 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A police official said the arrests took place on Thursday, with the men suspected of planning to use bombs containing peroxide that were both powerful and easily transported. A statement from the office of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said prosecutors were still investigating the case against the three detainees and â€œthe question of guilt has not yet been decidedâ€, APA reports quoting The New York Times.
Siv Alsen, a spokeswoman for the Norwegian Police Security Services, said in a telephone interview that there could be further arrests as a result of ongoing investigations, but she declined to spell out the precise connection with terrorism cases in Britain and the United States. She said two of the arrests took place in Oslo and one in Germany. The suspects had not resisted arrest, she said. The detentions were the first involving terrorism suspects in Norway since 2006, she said.
Norwegian counterterrorism agents had maintained surveillance of the suspects for a â€œlong time,â€ keeping tabs on them both individually and as a group, Ms. Alsen said. Under Norwegian law the suspects can be held for 72 hours without being charged before a judge rules on whether they should remain in custody, she said.
The detentions followed the arrest in England on Wednesday of a man whom the United States is seeking to have extradited to America in connection with the failed plot to bomb the New York City subway last year.
British prosecutors identified the man as Abid Naseer, 24, who appeared in court in London on Wednesday.
He has been accused of planning attacks in Manchester, England, and of communicating with leaders of Al Qaeda.
The arrests in Norway also came one day after federal prosecutors in Brooklyn formally charged an American citizen, Adnan G. el-Shukrijumah, with several crimes, including the bomb plot last summer to attack three New York City subway lines and what they said was a related plot, one that British authorities said included a plan to blow up a shopping center in the northwestern city of Manchester.
According to a Justice Department news release announcing the charges, Mr. Shukrijumah, 34, was one of a panel of three men overseeing Al Qaedaâ€™s efforts to carry out attacks in the United States and other Western countries.
Janne Kristiansen of the Norwegian Police Security Services told a news conference on Thursday that the arrests had been prompted by fears that details of the Norwegian investigation of the three suspects would become public.
â€œWe were afraid evidence would be destroyed, because we knew that an international media organization was about to publish details of the case,â€ she said. â€œThat made it urgent to make the arrests.â€
She added, â€œâ€˜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.â€
Ms. Alsen, the spokeswoman, said the Norwegian authorities had been making preparations for the arrests for about a week before they moved in at around 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. Thursday.
One of the men arrested was a 39-year-old Norwegian citizen of Chinese origin who belonged to the Muslim Uighur ethnic group and had been in Norway since 1999, police said. Another was a 37-year-old Iraqi citizen from a Kurdish background who also went to Norway in 1999 and has permanent residency.
The third man was a 31-year-old Uzbek citizen who had arrived in Norway in 2002 and had permanent residency, the police said. Their names were not released.
The Associated Press quoted Norwegian officials as saying a former Qaeda operative named Saleh al-Somali, who helped plan attacks against the United States and other Western countries, had also been behind the plot in Norway. Mr. Somali, who has been described as a mastermind of the planned subway attacks, was killed in a drone strike late last year in Pakistanâ€™s tribal areas.
It was not clear if Norway had been chosen as a target or was a staging post for a larger conspiracy. The Norwegian police said the men had been seized on suspicion of preparing terrorist activities.
Norway has a small contingent serving with the 46-nation United States-led coalition fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan and is one of several countries cited by Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Ladenâ€™s deputy, as potential targets for attack. In 2006, Norwegian newspapers reprinted Danish cartoons that angered Muslims by lampooning the Prophet Muhammad.
Ms. Kristiansen said that, despite the conspiracy, Norway faced only a low prospect of a terrorist attack.
â€œThe threat of terrorism in Norway is low, and it is still low,â€ Reuters quoted her as saying.
But the justice minister, Knut Storberget, said the â€œthreat situation in Norway is gradually becoming more similar to the situation in countries where terrorist acts have been carried out or attempted.â€