As they arrested three others on July 8 for what seems to be the same plot, and they had Al Qaeda connections, I would not count on it sticking.
Agreed. Anyone stupid enough to think this was a Lone Christian Right-Wing Nutjob, raise your hand.
Thanks for the reminder.
From article from “Time”:
“Norway’s al-Qaeda Arrests: Terrorism’s Changing Face”
By Bruce Crumley
“Officials in Norway on Thursday, July 8, said they have arrested three men with ties to al-Qaeda suspected of “preparing terror activities.” It was unclear if their targets were to be in Norway or elsewhere. The men one of whom was apprehended in Germany were described as two legal Norwegian residents and a naturalized citizen. They are thought to have been planning bombing attacks similar to and apparently linked to last September’s averted suicide strike on the New York City subway system. On Wednesday, British police arrested a man suspected of involvement in what authorities revealed had been a plan thwarted in April 2009 to bomb downtown Manchester, in northern England. U.S. officials said the Manchester and New York City plots were “directly related,” and initial indicators suggest the Norwegian operation was connected to those as well.
(See pictures of Osama bin Laden.)
“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,” Janne Kristiansen, head of Norway’s Police Security Service, said at a press conference in Oslo on Thursday. Though relatively little information about the suspects was given, Kristiansen did say they included a 39-year-old Uighur from China, a 37-year-old Iraqi and a 31-year-old Uzbek. Kristiansen also said authorities decided to move on the suspects after more than a year of surveillance to beat pending media coverage that could have led them to flee.
So how does the Norwegian operation tie into last year’s prevented New York City subway strike? As in the New York plot, authorities believe, the operatives planning attacks in Norway and Manchester intended to use portable bombs made with peroxide. All three attacks are thought by U.S. officials to have been ordered by Salah al-Somali, an alleged al-Qaeda terrorism planner believed to have been killed in a drone hit in northwest Pakistan last year. The suspect in Wednesday’s U.K. bust Abid Naseer, a 24-year-old ethnic Pakistani is known to have been in Pakistan at the same time as Afghan native Najibullah Zazi, who is in prison after pleading guilty to planning to carry out the thwarted New York City subway attack. U.S. prosecutors say both Naseer and Zazi had been directed in their plotting via e-mail by an al-Qaeda facilitator in Pakistan referred to as “Ahmad.” U.S. investigators speculate that many of the plotters in the three foiled strikes may have been recruited to al-Qaeda’s cause by 34-year-old Saudi native Adnan el Shukrijumah, who was also indicted in Zazi’s case.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2002541,00.html#ixzz1SwG1p6w9