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Counterintelligence Police: Sweden has Thwarted Iranian Attack Plots

Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson arrives for an EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)
Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson arrives for an EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)
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Counterintelligence Police: Sweden has Thwarted Iranian Attack Plots

Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson arrives for an EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)
Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson arrives for an EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)

A senior member of the Swedish security police said Thursday that Iran has planned attacks on the country, days after local media reported that two Iranians were deported for a plot to kill three Swedish Jews several years ago.
Earlier this week, Swedish broadcast SR reported that two Iranians had been suspected of planning to kill members of the Swedish Jewish community. They were arrested in 2021 and were expelled from Sweden in 2022 without charges, according to Swedish radio.
According to The Associated Press, Daniel Stenling, counterespionage head at Sweden’s domestic security agency, told SR on Thursday that Iran “has been preparing and conducted activities aimed at carrying out a so-called physical attack against someone or something in Sweden.”
He added, "we have worked on a number of such cases where we have, as we gauge it, thwarted such preparations.” He declined to give specifics.
The two deported Iranians sought asylum in the Scandinavian country in 2015, claiming to be Afghans, and eventually got shelter in Sweden, according to SR. The report identified them as Mahdi Ramezani and Fereshteh Sanaeifarid, and said they have links to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
A Swedish prosecutor earlier confirmed to The Associated Press that the two, a man and woman, were suspected of planning to carry out an attack “deemed to be terror” and that they have been expelled from Sweden. Prosecutor Hans Ihrman did not say when.
Ihrman told the AP that the prosecution “failed to get the necessary evidence that had been a prerequisite to be able to bring charges.” He also declined to give further details.
SR said the Iranians arrived in Sweden in 2015 as hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers sought to Europe. Sweden, with a population of 10 million, took in a record 163,000 migrants in 2015 — the highest per capita of any European country.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Wednesday the report was “very serious.”
“We have had too many people in Sweden entering on the wrong grounds and who were not stopped at the border,” Kristersson said. “It is extremely important that dangerous people are stopped if they try to enter.”
The security agency earlier has said that Iran was active in Sweden and has been described as one of the countries that pose the greatest intelligence threat to Sweden.
“But I can’t go into detail about what it’s about, because then I’d reveal what we’re doing,” Stenling told SR.

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Typhoon Man-yi Leaves 7 Dead in Landslide in Philippines and Worsens Crisis from Back-to-Back Storms

People ride motorized tricycles on a flooded street following super typhoon Man-yi, in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines, November 18, 2024. (Reuters)
People ride motorized tricycles on a flooded street following super typhoon Man-yi, in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines, November 18, 2024. (Reuters)
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Typhoon Man-yi Leaves 7 Dead in Landslide in Philippines and Worsens Crisis from Back-to-Back Storms

People ride motorized tricycles on a flooded street following super typhoon Man-yi, in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines, November 18, 2024. (Reuters)
People ride motorized tricycles on a flooded street following super typhoon Man-yi, in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines, November 18, 2024. (Reuters)

Typhoon Man-yi left at least seven people dead in a landslide, destroyed scores of houses and displaced large numbers of villagers before blowing away from the northern Philippines, worsening the crisis wreaked by multiple back-to-back storms, officials said Monday.

Man-yi was one of the strongest of the six major storms to hit the northern Philippines in less than a month and had sustained winds of up to 195 kilometers (125 miles) per hour when it slammed into the eastern island province of Catanduanes on Saturday night.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. In Manila and offered his prayers, announcing an additional $1 million in humanitarian aid for typhoon victims. He told Marcos he has authorized US troops to help Filipino forces provide lifesaving aid.

Torrential rains and fierce wind unleashed by Man-yi set off a landslide early Monday in the northern town of Ambaguio in Nueva Vizcaya province that buried a house and killed seven people, including children, and injured three others inside, regional police chief Brig. Gen. Antonio P. Marallag Jr. said.

Army troops, police and villagers were scrambling to search for three other people who were believed to have been entombed in the avalanche of mud, boulders and uprooted trees, Marallag said.

Disaster response officials said they were checking if the deaths of two villagers in a motorcycle accident and an electrocution were directly related to Man-yi’s onslaught so they could be added to the overall death toll. They said a separate search was underway for a couple and their child after their shanty was swept away in rampaging rivers in northern Nueva Ecija province.

More than a million people were affected by the typhoon and two previous storms, including nearly 700,000 who fled their homes and moved to emergency shelters or relatives' homes, according to the Official of Civil Defense.

Nearly 8,000 houses were damaged or destroyed and more than 100 cities and towns were hit by power outages due to toppled electric posts, it said.

In the worst-hit province of Camarines, officials pleaded for additional help after fierce winds and rain damaged more houses and cut off electricity and water supplies in the entire province, along with cellphone connections in many areas, provincial information officer Camille Gianan said.

Welfare officials transported food aid, drinking water and other help but more is needed over the coming months, Gianan said. Many villagers will need construction materials to rebuild their houses, she said.

"They have not recovered from the previous storms when the super typhoon hit," Gianan told The Associated Press. "It’s been one calamity after another."

The rare number of back-to-back storms and typhoons that lashed Luzon — the country's largest and most populous island — in just three weeks left more than 160 people dead, affected 9 million people and caused such extensive damage to communities, infrastructure and farmlands that the Philippines may have to import more rice, a staple food.

In an emergency meeting as Man-yi approached, Marcos asked his Cabinet and provincial officials to brace for "the worst-case scenario."

At least 26 domestic airports and two international airports were briefly shut and inter-island ferry and cargo services were suspended due to rough seas, stranding thousands of passengers and commuters. Most transport services have now resumed, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippine and the coast guard.

The US, Manila’s treaty ally, along with Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei provided cargo aircraft and other storm aid to help the government’s overwhelmed disaster-response agencies. Last month, the first major storm, Trami, left scores of people dead after dumping one to two months’ worth of rain in just 24 hours in several towns.

The Philippines is battered by about 20 typhoons and storms each year. It’s often hit by earthquakes and has more than a dozen active volcanoes, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.