STOCKHOLM: Sweden’s intelligence service said Friday it was lowering its terror alert level from “high threat” to “elevated threat,” saying the risk of an attack had subsided.
The Swedish Security Service (Sapo) raised the level in August 2023 to “high threat” — the fourth level on a scale of five — after angry reactions to a series of protests involving desecrations of the Qur'an made the country a “prioritized target.”
“Propaganda against Sweden has subsided and Sweden is not specifically mentioned as a target,” Fredrik Hallstrom, head of operations at the Swedish Security Service, told a press conference.
“We do not see the same intense flow of attack threats directed at Sweden,” he added.
Sapo said it now considered the terror alert level to be at “elevated threat” — the third level on its five-point scale.
Hallstrom cautioned that with “an elevated threat, there is room for a terrorist attack to occur.”
A series of Qur'an burnings across the country — most notably by Iraqi Christian Salwan Momika — in the summer of 2023 sparked outrage in the Muslim world.
It strained relations between Sweden and several Middle Eastern countries, and Iraqi protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad twice in July 2023, starting fires within the compound on the second occasion.
Momika ended up facing charges of inciting ethnic hatred, but in January of this year he was fatally shot in an apartment just hours before the court was due to deliver its ruling.
His co-protester Salwan Najem, also of Iraqi origin, was ultimately found guilty of inciting ethnic hatred during four Qur'an burnings in 2023.
Despite the lowered threat level, Charlotte von Essen, head of Sapo, stressed that “Sweden is in a serious security situation.”
“The worst in many years,” von Essen told reporters.
The Sapo chief pointed to the fact that the war in Ukraine was still ongoing.
“Foreign powers — and Russia in particular — are carrying out extensive security-threatening activities in and against Sweden,” she said.

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s Muhammad Yunus “needs to remain” in office as interim leader to ensure a peaceful transition of power, a cabinet member and special adviser to Yunus said Friday.

Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who took over after a mass uprising last year, had threatened to quit the job if parties did not give him their backing, a political ally and sources in his office said.

The South Asian nation of around 170 million people has been in political turmoil since the student-led revolt that toppled then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024, with parties protesting on the streets over a string of demands.

“For the sake of Bangladesh and a peaceful democratic transition, Professor Yunus needs to remain in office,” Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, a special assistant to Yunus, and head of the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology, said in a post on Facebook.

“The Chief Adviser is not going to step down,” he added. “He does not hanker after power.”

Bangladesh’s political crisis has escalated this week, with rival parties protesting on the streets of the capital Dhaka with a string of competing demands.

Yunus’s reported threat to stand down came after thousands of supporters of the powerful Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) rallied in Dhaka on Wednesday, holding large-scale protests against the interim government for the first time.

Yunus has promised polls will be held by June 2026 at the latest, but supporters of the BNP — seen as the front-runners in highly anticipated elections that will be the first since Hasina was overthrown — demanded he fix a date.

Yunus’s relationship with the military has also reportedly deteriorated.

According to local media and military sources, powerful army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman said on Wednesday that elections should be held by December.

Taiyeb issued a warning to the army on Friday.

“The army can’t meddle in politics,” he wrote.

“The army doesn’t do that in any civilized country,” he added.

“By saying that the election has to be held by December, the military chief failed to maintain his jurisdictional correctness.”