Swedish police arrest man for ‘plotting terror attack’

Synagogues throughout Sweden have shut down temporarily in response to the country raising its official terror threat assessment level.

While Swedish Interior Minister Ygeman said that alone the manhunt was not sufficient to raise the threat level, in light of the recent attacks in Paris heightened security was deemed prudent.

Security police (SAPO) chief Anders Thornberg said one arrest had been made “in absentia” for terrorism crimes for an unnamed suspect.

“We are in an intensive operative part and are working to analyse and assess incoming info”, Thornberg informed a information convention.

Sweden’s Jewish community shut down synagogues across the country as a precautionary measure against possible attacks by terrorist groups. Police are expected to release more information, including a picture of the suspect, at a later date.

Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reported Thursday morning that the young man now believed to be posing a terrorist threat to Sweden may have fled to Norway.

Israel on Monday condemned the comments by Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom that seemed to link the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the ISIS-backed terrorist attacks in Paris, as “shockingly hostile”.

‘We are now in a very intense stage of the investigation and we are still very interested in his activities and people he met with since arriving in Sweden, ‘ said Mark Vadasz, a spokesperson for Sapo, the Swedish security service.

Over the last few years, Sweden has participated in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation missions in Afghanistan and is training Kurdish forces in Iraq, moves that have changed its traditional image of neutrality.

The most recent attack in Stockholm was on December 11, 2010, when an Iraqi-born Swede, Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, detonated two devices, including one that killed him, in central Stockholm.

“But it does not work like that”.