Sweden and Norway hold suspects after terror raids

Security services in the neighbouring countries gave fewdetails on the cases, but Swedish news agency TT said the raidswere coordinated.

"Three people have been taken into custody," said MariaMartinsson, spokeswoman for the Swedish Security Service.

"They are suspected of preparing terrorist activity and offinancing terrorism."

Norway's state security police said in a statement it hadalso detained three people on suspicion of funding terroristactivities abroad.

The raids took place around the Swedish capital Stockholmand also close to Oslo, Norway's capital.

Norway's intelligence agency said earlier this month thatthe threat of terror attacks by Islamic radicals was rising inpart because of the country's military presence in Afghanistan.

There have been no major terror attacks in the Nordicregion, but Sweden's Security Service has warned that thecountry might serve as a recruiting ground and source offinance for terrorism elsewhere.

The TT news agency quoted Swedish Security Servicesspokesman Jacob Larsson saying that the raids had nothing to dowith drawings of the Prophet Mohammad.

Cartoons published in Danish newspapers in 2005 and 2006led to rioting in the Muslim world and at least 50 deaths.

In 2007, a cartoon by Lars Vilks of a dog with the head ofthe Prophet led to death threats against the Swedish artist.

Two men were jailed in Sweden in 2005 for collecting moneyto fund attacks in Iraq. Three Swedish Muslims were also jailedin 2006 for fire-bombing an Iraqi election office and planningan attack on a church.

In Norway, two men stand charged of plotting a terrorattack against the U.S. and Israeli embassies in Oslo in 2006.

One of them, a Norway-born Pakistani, has also been chargedwith firing about a dozen shots with an automatic weapon intothe wall of a synagogue in September 2006, which put the policeon to the trail of the embassy plot.

(Reporting by John Acher in Oslo and Simon Johnson inStockholm; Editing by Keith Weir)