Sweden lowers terrorist threat assessment back to level before 2023 Koran burnings

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By Simon Johnson and Johan Ahlander

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Sweden’s SAPO security service lowered its national terrorist threat warning on Friday back to the “elevated” level assessed before 2023, when it was raised in the wake of a spate of Koran burnings.

SAPO had raised the threat level to “high”, the second highest level, after several high profile cases in which anti-Islam activists based in Sweden burned copies of the holy book, outraging Muslims in several countries.

SAPO said that after a period during which Sweden was singled out as a specific target in militant propaganda, it was now increasingly being treated as a part of the West more generally.

“Sweden has gone from being a priority target to a legitimate target for violent Islamism globally,” SAPO head Charlotte von Essen told a news conference. “The threat of attacks from violent extremism, in the traditional sense, is not as high as before.”

She stressed that Sweden was not immune and that attacks could always happen regardless of the terror level assessment.

The Koran burnings in 2023 prompted angry protesters to storm and vandalise Sweden’s embassy in Baghdad and drew calls to violence from militant groups such as Hezbollah, al Shabaab and al Qaeda.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also urged severe punishment for those responsible and said Sweden was in battle mode against the Muslim world.

Salwan Momika, an Iraqi refugee behind most Koran burnings in Sweden in recent years, was shot dead in January, a murder that is still unsolved but believed by police to be connected to his anti-Islam activities.

SAPO also said threats to Jews and Israeli targets in Sweden had increased since the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas-led fighters, which triggered the war in Gaza.

(Reporting by Anna Ringstrom Johan Ahlander and Simon Johnson in Stockholm and Stine Jacobsen in CopenhagenEditing by Terje Solsvik and Peter Graff)