Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said in 2023 that Sweden had gone into “battle-array for war on the Muslim world” by supporting “the criminal”, and that “all Islamic scholars agree that those who desecrate the Koran deserved the most severe punishment”.

An Iraqi man who staged Quran burnings in Sweden was shot dead hours before he was set to receive a verdict on Thursday in a trial tied to the desecrations of Islam’s holy book that drew worldwide uproar, authorities said.

As tensions rise, NATO has launched Baltic Sentry 2025 to enhance security and resilience. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has emphasized the need for greater coordination in protecting critical infrastructure from sabotage.

He'd also left a notebook behind after an interview & forgot his mobile phone at a foreign embassy. Read more at straitstimes.com.

Salwan Momika was set to stand trial over hate incitement charges on Thursday.

Russia is "the main actor" in hybrid attacks on the alliance, said a senior NATO official following a spate of incidents.

Latvian navy coordinating with Nato over incident which comes after military alliance boosted its presence in Baltic Sea in December

Swedish authorities boarded a vessel suspected of being involved in an earlier underwater sabotage of cables in the Baltic Sea on Monday.

Mads Petersen, owner of Greenland-based startup Arctic Unmanned, sat in a car to keep warm while he tested a small drone at minus 43 degrees Celsius (minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit).

Russia and China have stepped up military activity in the Arctic, while NATO states in the region are reporting more acts of sabotage on energy and communications lines. President Donald Trump has recently revived U.

The 23 EU members who also belong to NATO are likely to agree to raise the defence spending target above the current 2% of national output at a June summit of the alliance that will set a new level, European Council President Antonio Costa said.