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BOMB

Suspects held over Gothenburg bomb threat

Several people were detained by Swedish police on Saturday in connection with a bomb threat in Gothenburg on the west coast.

“Police detained several people suspected of involvement in a bomb alert in Gothenburg,” Gothenburg police said in a statement.

Suspects were being questioned on suspicion of preparing a “terrorist crime,” police said, but were unable to give any details of any concrete threat.

“The threat against central Gothenburg has not been warded off with today’s detentions. We stand by what we said initially, which is that a bomb is to be detonated somewhere in central Gothenburg on Saturday,” said police spokesperson Björn Blixter.

Police revealed Friday that they had been tipped off “by a credible source” that a bomb attack was planned in central Gothenburg.

“We received the right information which led to today’s detentions,” Blixter said.

The police were unwilling to confirm the identity or number of those detained.

“In view of the classification of the crime – conspiring to commit terrorist attacks – then we have to be restrictive with the information that we divulge,” he said.

Security patrols were stepped up in the city but nothing had been found by early Saturday. The police on Saturday morning deemed the threat to be credible but vague and have formed a special task force to work on the case.

Sweden’s Security Service (Säpo) said it was working closely with Gothenburg police but the terrorist alert level remained unchanged.

The terrorism alert level was raised by one point in October from “weak” (two on a scale of five) to three because of the perceived increased threat of terrorism in Europe.

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POLITICS

Red-green coalition takes power in Gothenburg

The Social Democrats, Green Party and Left Party have managed to oust the right-wing Moderates from power in Gothenburg, despite failing to strike a coalition deal with the Centre Party.

Red-green coalition takes power in Gothenburg

The Social Democrats, Left Party and Green Party will now take over the municipality with Jonas Attenius, group leader for the Social Democrats in the city, becoming the new mayor.

“We three parties are ready to together take responsibility for leading Gothenburg,” Attenius wrote to TT. “I am looking forward immensely to leading Gothenburg in the coming years.” 

The three parties will lead a minority government, with 40 out of 81 mandates, meaning it will dependent on mandates from the Centre Party to pass proposals. 

The three parties had hoped to bring the Centre Party into the coalition, but talks fell apart on Monday,  October 24th. 

“We our going into opposition, but our goal is to be an independent, liberal force, which can negotiate both to the left and to the right,” the party’s group leader in Gothenburg, Emmyly Bönfors told the Göteborgs-Posten newspaper. 

The end of talks in Gothenburg leave the Social Democrats leading coalition governments in all three of Sweden’s major cities, with Karin Wanngård appointed Mayor of Stockholm on October 17th. 

The Social Democrats had unbroken control in Malmö since 1994, after they regained power from the Moderates, who controlled the city from 1991-1994, and also from 1985-1988. 

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