German authorities announced Tuesday that they have arrested two individuals suspected of being affiliated with the Islamic State who planned to carry out a terror attack in the Swedish parliament. It’s unclear when the attack was planned to be executed, but their arrest comes a month and a half before Sweden hosts the Eurovision Song Contest, and while it is on high alert for terror threats by extremist Islamic groups.
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According to the German Federal Prosecutor's Office, two Afghan nationals identified as Ibrahim MG and Ramin N were detained in the eastern German city of Gera on suspicion of plotting the attack.
Investigators found that the suspects had joined IS Khorasan Province – a branch of the extreme Islamist terror group – in 2023 and had collected donations of around 2,000 euros for the organization. The funds were intended to help IS members imprisoned in northern Syria. According to German prosecutors, the two suspects had planned to kill police officers and other people using firearms in the area of the parliament in Stockholm.
The investigation into the suspects also revealed that the two terrorists intended to carry out the terror attack in Sweden as revenge for the public Quran burnings in the country last year. In 2023, several incidents took place in Sweden and Denmark in which anti-Islamic activists burned the Quran, threw it on the ground or defaced it.
In both countries, freedom of expression is considered a sacred value and, although their governments distanced themselves from the acts and condemned them, they clarified that they have no legal means to prevent them. The acts led to outrage in the Muslim world, with mobs attacking Sweden's embassy in Iraq, and threats of revenge, leading Sweden to tighten its borders.
Following the outrage, Sweden warned its nationals in August of alerts of terror attacks targeting Swedish residents both inside and outside the country and announced Sweden had become a preferred target for attacks.
In October, a week after Hamas' attack against Israel, an ISIS terrorist carried out a shooting attack in downtown Brussels, in which he murdered two Swedish soccer fans who arrived to see their team's match against Belgium.
The foiling of the planned attack comes as Sweden prepares for a major security challenge around the Eurovision Song Contest, which it will host next month in Malmö, a city with a large Muslim population. Ahead of the competition and amid calls to ban Israel from participating, large-scale anti-Israeli protests are expected during the event, which may also include Islamist elements.