Finnish police have arrested five men suspected of far-right terrorism and were planning a motivated bomb and gun attack.
According to police, the five people are from the southwestern municipality of Kankaanpaa and were arrested after being under surveillance for two years. Finnish police have also mentioned that this is the country’s first case of terrorism with ties to the far-right. Kankaanpaa residents noted that the suspects were allegedly neo-Nazis or skinheads.
Finnish police also noted that the suspects follow “accelerationism”, a white supremacist ideology that aims for a racial division and has also been linked to mass shootings in the U.S. However, police stated that the group did not belong to any specific extremist organizations.
“A small group like this which idealizes terrorist violence works in secret and their activity does not appear to belong to an extremist organization,” they explained.
