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Norwegian police are investigating a possible terrorist attack on the United States Embassy in Oslo after an incendiary device exploded at the entrance to the building’s consular section at approximately 1 a.m. local time on Sunday, causing minor structural damage and no injuries, but prompting a major security response involving dogs, drones, and helicopters as investigators searched for one or more suspects in the first attack on a US diplomatic facility in Scandinavia in recent memory.
The blast comes at a time of heightened security for US embassies and consulates around the world as Israel and the United States conduct a rapidly escalating bombing campaign against Iran, with multiple US diplomatic buildings in Gulf kingdoms that host American troops having been targeted by Iranian retaliatory strikes.
Norwegian police were careful not to formally attribute the attack but placed it squarely within that context.
“It’s natural to see this in the context of the current security situation and that this could be an attack deliberately targeting the US embassy,” Frode Larsen, head of the Oslo police investigation unit, told a news conference. “One of our hypotheses is that this is terrorism, but we are also exploring other options,” he later told public broadcaster NRK.
The explosion was caused by some sort of incendiary device, according to Larsen. Investigators believe the embassy was the target and are searching for the perpetrators and their motive. Police incident commander Michael Dellemyr told TV2 that investigators “have an idea of the cause,” and that the incident appeared to be “an act carried out by someone,” the clearest official language yet suggesting deliberate human agency rather than an accident. Dellemyr declined to comment publicly on the type of damage, what had exploded, or similar details, saying it was “very early in the investigation.”
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Eyewitnesses described a loud explosion that shook nearby buildings and sent thick black smoke billowing from the embassy entrance. Anna Gilbo, who was at home with friends nearby, told CNN she heard the blast and rushed to her window to see a cloud of smoke rising from the compound. Sebastian Toerstad, an 18-year-old student who drove past the embassy moments after the explosion, described “a very thick layer of smoke on the street.”
Photos posted on social media showed shattered glass in the snow outside the consular entrance, cracks in a glass door, and dark scorch marks on the tiled floor inside. Investigations were carried out at the scene with the aid of dogs, drones, and a helicopter, searching for one or more potential perpetrators.
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Norway’s Police Security Service, PST, called in additional personnel following the incident but did not change the country’s terror threat level. Justice Minister Astri Aas-Hansen described it as “an unacceptable incident that is being treated with the utmost seriousness,” adding that nothing indicated the situation posed any danger to the public. Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said he had contacted US embassy chargé d’affaires Eric Meyer to convey that the attack was unacceptable and that Norway took the security of diplomatic missions extremely seriously. The US State Department said it was aware of an incident at the embassy and was investigating. No arrests had been made as of Sunday morning and no group had claimed responsibility.
The Oslo embassy sits in the Morgedalsvegen district of western Oslo, approximately seven kilometres outside the city centre. It is a mid-sized diplomatic compound without the fortress-level physical security of newer US embassy constructions in high-threat postings, and the attack on its public consular entrance — the point of highest civilian foot traffic — raises questions about the physical vulnerability of older embassy buildings in European capitals that were not designed to the post-September 11 security standards now standard in new US diplomatic construction. Norway’s government said it would conduct a security review of all diplomatic facilities on Norwegian territory in the coming days.
