Radical Islamists pose the biggest threat to Norway even though it was a rightwing extremist who carried out the twin attacks there last July that killed 77 people, Norwegian intelligence service PST said Tuesday.
“The threat associated with these groups is worrying today,” PST chief Janne Kristiansen said as she presented the agency’s annual threat assessment report.
“In recent years, we have seen that these are people who grew up in Norway and were radicalised and who consider Norway and the Norwegian society the enemy,” she explained.
The number of Islamic extremists in Norway remains small, but their ranks could expand and they have become ever more operational, according to PST, pointing to a growing trend of extremist youths going to training camps in conflict areas before returning to the Scandinavian country.
The threat from rightwing extremist groups meanwhile remains unchanged, according to the intelligence agency, which stressed that this movement would continue to count few followers in 2012.
“The number of violent rightwing extremists in Norway is still low. Attempts to actively recruit to the anti-Muslim movements have failed so far,” Kristiansen said.