Security police chief Charlotte von Essen decided today to raise the terror threat level from 3 to 4, from elevated to high threat. The level on the five-point scale is the highest in seven years.
– We have gone from being regarded as a legitimate target to a priority target for violent Islamism globally, says Charlotte von Essen.
The decision was announced at a press conference at Säpo. At the same time, the authority urged the public to continue living their lives as usual. Something like the terrorist researcher and the political scientist Magnus Torell questions.
– It’s strange that you have to live as usual and then you raise it to four. There is a contradiction here that cannot be reconciled. What you tell people is that it will be more dangerous but at the same time you tell them to live as usual but be careful, how then? You don’t get any answers to that.
How should a private person handle this information?
– It can’t be put together. On the one hand, we have to live as usual, but on the other hand, it’s much more dangerous, but you don’t get to know anything concrete. So I can’t answer how people should act, how to do it? There is nothing concrete to touch on.
Saw the decision: “Stay in the boat”
The security service also stated that there is no single incident behind the decision, but that the reason is the deteriorating security situation. Al-Qaeda recently called for terrorist attacks against Sweden.
– That the noise level is increasing, that different actors are shouting louder that Sweden should be attacked, does not necessarily mean that it concretely means an increased terrorist threat, but it is the noise level that is rising, says Magnus Torell and calls Säpo’s statements at the press conference “extremely general and vague” .
The terrorism researcher is therefore critical of the decision to go up a step on the scale for the threat level of attacks.
– This plays into the hands of those who want Sweden badly, it pays to sound a lot and to act verbally above all – because then things happen in Sweden and this is a sign of that. I had wished that they had not raised but that they had sat still in the boat and had ice in their stomachs.
He also believes that “you have no use at all from this level scale”.
– One of the most important things that was said at the press conference was what the operational manager said. That “this does not affect our operational work at all, but we always work like this”, and that is exactly the point. So this whole threat level scale is a very blunt instrument that you might as well refrain from using at all.