Norwegian Police Hunt for Suspect After Explosion at US Embassy in Oslo
Norwegian police are hunting an unidentified suspect after an improvised explosive device went off at the US embassy in Oslo in the early hours of Sunday, with investigators looking at a possible link to the Iran war.
The bomb detonated at around 1am local time at the public entrance to the embassy's consular section in the Morgedalsvegen district, about 7km outside the city centre. It caused minor damage, including shattered glass, cracks in a door and scorch marks on the floor, and filled the street with thick smoke, but nobody was hurt.
By Monday, police had confirmed the device was an IED that caused a "powerful blast" and released surveillance images showing a hooded figure in dark clothing carrying a bag or rucksack. The person's face was not visible and no identification has been made.
Investigators are also looking into a 15-second video posted to the US embassy's Google Maps page around the time of the blast. The clip shows Iran's late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a US-Israeli airstrike on 28th February, leaving a room, accompanied by text in Farsi including the phrases "Where did he go?", "he wanted to leave anyway" and "he's gone." Police said they "are aware of the video that was published on Google Maps around the time of the incident and are conducting further investigations."
Terrorism is one hypothesis about the motive behind the explosion, but police have been careful not to commit to it. "None of the police's hypotheses have been weakened or strengthened so far, and we are still early in the investigation," they said on Monday. Frode Larsen, who heads the Oslo police investigation unit, told broadcaster NRK on Sunday: "We have to be open to the possibility that there may be other causes behind what has happened."
Norway's government has condemned the incident in strong terms. Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said he had contacted the US embassy's chargé d'affaires directly and stressed that "the security of diplomatic missions is very important to us." Justice minister Astri Aas-Hansen called it "an unacceptable incident that is being treated with the utmost seriousness," while adding that nothing suggested any ongoing danger to the public. Norway's domestic security service, PST, has brought in extra personnel but has not raised the country's terror threat level.
The US State Department said it was "aware of an incident at the US Embassy in Oslo" and that an investigation was underway.
The blast comes as Europe is on heightened alert following the US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Iranian retaliatory attacks across the Middle East. In a separate incident on Monday, a synagogue in the Belgian city of Liège was damaged by an explosion that authorities described as an antisemitic attack. No group has claimed responsibility for either incident. Norwegian police said they were also taking steps to protect the country's Jewish community in the wake of events.
