On Wednesday, security police raised their assessment of the threat to Sweden by one step, to four on a scale of five – indicating a high risk of an attack.
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“The decision is based on an assessment by the National Centre for Terrorist Threat Assessment (NCT) which is responsible for conducting threat assessments for Sweden and Swedish interests overseas”, intelligence service Sapo said in a statement.
SAPO, said late Wednesday it hasn’t established any direct link between the suspect and the recent attacks in Paris by Islamic State, which killed at least 129 people.
Mr Thornberg told reporters: “We’re at an intensive operative stage and are working to analyse the information”.
Sweden’s Jewish community shut down synagogues across the country as a precautionary measure against possible attacks by terrorist groups.
The agency added that police had heightened patrols in public areas and could soon release a picture and more information about the suspect, who one local news channel said may be of Iraqi origins.
He said the Swedish case was not linked to the.
The Norwegian security service, PTS, said: “A national intelligence squad has been created to give the PTS and regular police the best possible chance to detect and prevent planned terror in Norway”. It was not clear whether or not the assault was deliberate to be carried out in Sweden.
Shortly after the announcement, a grainy image of the suspect was published by tabloid Expressen and soon spread across social media. “We need to continue to take action in order to be able to live in a safe and free Sweden”.
The last militant attack in Sweden came in 2010 when a suicide bomber died when his bomb belt went off prematurely in central Stockholm as he was getting ready to attack a train station or department store.
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“But it does not work like that”.
