Thursday, July 8, 2010

Three alleged al-Qaeda members have been arrested in Norway and Germany for suspected involvement in a bomb plot. Norway’s Police Security service said that they were arrested for “preparing terror activities.” The three men had been watched both by Norway and the United States for over a year, and officials said that peroxide bombs were planned to be used.

It was unclear if the men, of which one had Norwegian citizenship, with the other two possessing permanent residence permits, had selected a target. One of the suspects was of Uyghur origin, another is Iraqi-Kurdish, and the third is from Uzbekistan.

Two of the suspects were arrested in Oslo while the other one was captured in Germany in collaboration with authorities there.

Norwegian and United States officials say that this bombing plot is linked to last year’s failed New York subway bombing scheme and another failed plot to bomb Manchester, England. These failed schemes also involved peroxide bombs.

Norway’s Police Security Service released a statement that said “[i]t is important to emphasize that those groups in Norway that may constitute a threat to national security are small and primarily involved in support activities to foreign countries. We would therefore like to stress that today’s apprehensions will not result in a different assessment of the current threat situation in Norway, and that the threat level will still be considered low.”