Three brothers have been arrested in connection with the explosion at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, Norway, authorities said Wednesday.
The brothers were Norwegian citizens of Iraqi origin, police prosecutor Christian Hatlo said in a news conference. They have been arrested around 3:30 p.m. local time Wednesday on suspicion of a “terrorist bombing” at the building. The men are in their 20s and were not previously known to police, Hatlo said. Investigators are still working to determine a motive, Hatlo said.
“We are still working from several hypotheses. One of them is whether this is an order from a government entity,” Hatlo said. “This is quite natural given the target — the U.S. embassy — and the security situation the world is in today,” he said.
Hatlo said investigators are still working to determine what role the brothers played in the bombing, which caused minor damage to the building but did not result in any casualties or injuries. Hatlo said that police believe one man placed the bomb outside the embassy and the other two were “complicit in the act.” Hatlo said police are not ruling out links to “criminal networks.”
The explosion occurred at one of the entrances to the U.S. Embassy around 1 a.m. local time, Oslo police previously said. Police incident commander Michael Dellemyr told public broadcaster NRK that the blast hit the entrance of the embassy’s consular section.
Police reinforced security measures in Oslo and increased their presence around the embassy after the blast. Police also upped security measures to protect the Iranian diaspora and Jewish communities in Norway. Officials said that there were no indications of a lingering threat after the explosion.
Frode Larsen, head of the Oslo police investigation unit, told reporters at a news conference that it may have been a deliberate attack linked to the crisis in the Middle East, Reuters reported. He later told NRK that terrorism was one of several motives authorities were investigating.
In its annual threat assessment, the Norwegian security service PST said last month that Iran could rely on “proxy actors,” including “criminal networks,” to commit such acts.
Rep. Rick Crawford, chair of the House Intel Committee, told Fox News on Sunday that he believed the explosion “may have been a terrorist attack.” U.S. embassies around the world have been placed on high alert since the war in Iran began. Several have faced attacks as Tehran hits back at industrial and diplomatic targets.
“We need to be very diligent about not only our security here at home, but obviously targets around (the) world where there are U.S. assets including embassies and so on,” Crawford said.
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