(Bloomberg) — Police in Denmark and Sweden are increasing security after two explosions rocked the area around the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen and a shooting took place near the diplomatic mission in Sweden.
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Copenhagen police are investigating whether the explosions are linked to the embassy, as is one of several avenues of investigation, Jakob Hansen, deputy police inspector, said at a news conference on Wednesday. Three people have been arrested, two of whom were on a train at Copenhagen Central Station.
“The Israeli embassy is in the immediate vicinity and that is also an angle we are currently pursuing,” Hansen said. “It is still too early to say whether there are any connections.”
“We are going to strengthen our presence in the area,” he said.
In addition, Swedish police confirmed that a shooting had taken place near the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, after officers responded to reports of gunfire in the area late Tuesday afternoon. No one was injured and no suspect was arrested.
The area is well covered by surveillance cameras and investigators are currently examining the evidence, a Stockholm police spokesperson said.
The incidents come as attacks in the Middle East are escalating. Iran fired about 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday in retaliation after Israel carried out a dramatic series of attacks on Lebanon in recent days, killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike in Beirut and sending ground troops across the border.
In a statement on Facebook, the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen said it was “shocked” by the explosions and expressed confidence in the Danish police’s efforts to investigate the event.
Sweden’s security service has previously said that criminal gangs have been used as proxies by Iran to attack Israeli interests in the country, following two previous attempts to attack the embassy. Authorities also said last month that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was behind a hacking operation aimed at deepening divisions in the Scandinavian country by sending thousands of incendiary text messages.
The Iranian embassy in Stockholm has dismissed all allegations of involvement in attacks in Sweden as ‘false’ and ‘unfounded’.
–With assistance from Christopher Jungstedt and Charles Daly.
(Adds details about Copenhagen police detaining suspects in second paragraph)
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