US Embassy urges Americans in Nordic and Baltic region to be vigilant

Finnish Security Police sees no reason for alarm

Paavo Selin

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The United States Embassy in Helsinki has published a message on its web site urging US citizens in the Nordic and Baltic region to be vigilant, especially in centres of mass transit.
      According to the message, the US State Department has received "threat information". Americans are urged to report any suspicious "persons, incidents, or circumstances" to police. However, there was no mention of actual terrorism, or any other specific threat.
      A warning, which was posted on the web site of the US Embassy in the Latvian capital Riga, specifically mentioned a threat of terrorism.
      However, the web site of the American Embassy in Stockholm has no warnings, and the web site of the US Consulate in St. Petersburg only carried a warning of ethnic violence linked with the situation in Chechnya.
     
Paavo Selin, the head of the anti-terror unit of the Finnish Security Police (SUPO), said in a television interview on Monday morning that there is no special cause for alarm in Finland. He believes that the warning issued by the US Embassy is linked with the upcoming Presidential elections, the recent video message from Osama bin Laden, and the Halloween holiday.
      “The United States has a lower threshold for warning its citizens. We have no concrete information that would have required us to issue a warning such as this.”
      Selin also said that SUPO had heard vague rumours of a possible terrorist threat last weekend. The Security Police sent a query to its most important partners to ask if there was any concrete information that could serve as a foundation for sensible security precautions. Selin said that there was no concrete threat.
     
The US Embassy in Helsinki said that the warning was issued out of concern for the safety of Americans living and travelling in Finland.
      “If we get information that leads us to believe that there may be threats in the area, it is our obligation to give out information about it”, said Victoria Middleton of the US Embassy.
      She would not comment on the origin of the warning.


Links:
  US Embassy: Warden Message

Helsingin Sanomat