STOCKHOLM: Israel’s embassy in Stockholm was the target of an attempted attack, the ambassador said Wednesday, after a bomb squad destroyed what Swedish police called “a dangerous object.”
Police said the “live” device had been found by staff inside the premises of the Israeli embassy in the Swedish capital, without specifying what the object was.
“We were alerted at 1:08 p.m. (1208 GMT) by the embassy that they had found an object they believed to be dangerous,” Daniel Wikdahl with the Stockholm police told AFP.
An area around the object was closed off and Wikdahl added that the national bomb squad had been called to scene and had decided to destroy the object.
“The object has been destroyed by the national bomb squad, and our assessment is that it was live,” the police officer said.
Police have opened an investigation, but Wikdahl declined to specify what the object was, citing the ongoing enquiries.
“Today we were subject to an attempted attack against the Embassy of Israel in Stockholm and its employees,” Israeli ambassador to Sweden Ziv Nevo Kulman said in a post to X.
“We will not be intimidated by terror,” Kulman added.
Sweden’s government in late October pledged 10 million kronor ($1 million) in to increase security at Jewish institutions and congregations, as a result of increased anti-semitism in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.
In early December, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson took part in a march against anti-semitism in Stockholm.
Swedish police said at the time, they had received 120 reports of ant-semitic crimes since the outbreak of the war.
Following the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures, its military launched a withering air, land and sea offensive.
It has killed at least 26,900 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.
Attack foiled at Israel’s Sweden embassy: ambassador
https://arab.news/pdwts
Attack foiled at Israel’s Sweden embassy: ambassador
- Police said the “live” device had been found by staff inside the premises of the Israeli embassy in the Swedish capital
- Sweden’s government in late October pledged 10 million kronor ($1 million) in to increase security at Jewish institutions and congregations
Japan’s Takaichi hosts first summit with Central Asia leaders
- The Central Asian leaders also held separate summits with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen this year
TOKYO: Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi hosted an inaugural summit on Friday with five Central Asia leaders, as Tokyo competes for influence in the resource-rich region.
Takaichi is meeting with counterparts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan during a two-day conference in Tokyo, a month after US President Donald Trump hosted all five in Washington.
The Central Asian leaders also held separate summits with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen this year.
Like the United States and the European Union, Japan is drawn by the region’s enormous — but still mostly unexploited — natural resources in a push to diversify rare earths supplies and reduce dependence on Beijing.
With Tokyo trailing its rivals, the summit is important for Japan to increase its presence, said Tomohiko Uyama, a professor at Hokkaido University specializing in Central Asian politics.
“Natural resources have become a strong focus particularly in the past year because of China’s moves involving rare earths,” Uyama told AFP, referencing tight export controls introduced this year by Beijing.
During the summit, Takaichi and the five leaders are expected to establish an “AI partnership” framework, aiming to use technology to explore mineral deposits in undeveloped mines, the Nikkei Asia business daily said.
