PST: 70 Norwegian foreign fighters – NRK

PST: 70 Norwegian foreign fighters – NRK

– There are several who have traveled and we are now considering that there are about 70 people in total have traveled to the conflict in Syria, says PST chief Benedicte Bjørnland NRK.

PST Upward revision thus century from autumn when they estimated that around 60 Norwegian foreign fighters had traveled to participate in the war.

– It is well a trend that we have seen develop through 2014 that has continued, saying PST boss.

Adjusts continuously

Earlier, the Norwegian authorities estimated that around 60 people have traveled from Norway to associate themselves with rebel groups in Syria as IS. Bjørnland says this is the people with a high degree of certainty is foreign fighters and that they continuously adjust this number when there is a basis for it. Meanwhile they could not exclude unrecorded.

Several French media have reported that the terror suspects have traveled to Syria and may have received weapons training there.

– We can not exclude that some corresponding actions what we have seen in Paris could happen in Norway. It is observed a shift in Target selection towards more soft but symbol heavy targets and it is also observed a shift towards that utilizes handguns as a method and means, says Bjørnland.

– Is this harder to protect against than a traditional bomb attack?

– It goes without saying that actions with low planning horizon using simple remedies against soft targets is very difficult to prevent, says Bjørnland.

PST boss said at a press conference today that they have some control they repatriated foreign fighters who are in Norway, a number of around 20 people.

She said also that the terrorist attack in Paris yet not changing threat in Norway.

– Strengthening security in the silent

Author Kjetil Stormark think you will see a contagion effect of yesterday’s attacks in France.

– This will inspire other parts of the militant Islamist movement to conduct attacks against targets of the same type in other countries. This action has led to risk in Norway and the rest of Europe have been substantially larger, says Stormark.

Although the threat level in Norway has not increased, think Stormark being taken grip of the police in the future.

– Within the confined space takes it enough now work to sharpen the safety of symbolic building in Oslo and around key events in the next few weeks, think Stormark.