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Police in Norway said on Wednesday that three brothers had been arrested on suspicion of carrying out a “terrorist bombing” following an explosion at the Embassy of the United States in Oslo over the weekend.
The blast caused minor damage but no injuries.
Police prosecutor Christian Hatlo told a press conference that the suspects, Norwegian citizens of Iraqi origin in their twenties, were detained in Oslo while investigators work to determine the motive.
“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 US embassy and the security situation the world is in today,” he added.
Hatlo said investigators were examining the precise roles played by the three suspects.
“We believe that one of them is the person who placed the bomb outside the embassy and that the other two were complicit in the act,” he told reporters.
Oystein Storrvik, a lawyer representing one of the suspects, told broadcaster TV 2 Norway that his client had admitted: “to being involved in the case”. Storrvik added that his client had already been questioned by police.
Although the brothers were not previously known to police, Hatlo said investigators were not ruling out links to criminal groups.
In its annual threat assessment, the Norwegian Police Security Service warned last month that Iran, considered one of the main security threats to Norway, could rely on “proxy actors”, including criminal networks, to carry out attacks.
On Tuesday, Iran’s ambassador to Norway, Alireza Jahangiri, denied any involvement by Tehran in the embassy explosion.
Police said the perpetrators of the blast, described as “powerful”, may also have acted on their own motives.
US diplomatic missions have been placed on heightened alert in the Middle East following American strikes on Iran. Several facilities have faced threats as Tehran retaliates by targeting industrial and diplomatic sites.
The explosion occurred at around 1:00 am (0000 GMT) on Sunday at the entrance to the embassy’s consular section.
On Monday, authorities released two surveillance images showing a suspect dressed in dark clothing with a hood and carrying a backpack. Around the time of the incident, a video was uploaded to the Google Maps page for the embassy.
The footage, which has since been removed, appeared to show Iran’s late supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
According to the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, the person who uploaded the video wrote in Persian: “God is great. We are victorious.”
Police have also opened a separate investigation into the video.
