Police in six European countries have arrested at least 15 suspected members of a militant Islamist group that was planning attacks in Norway and the Middle East.
They said the militants planned to strike Norwegian and British diplomats in the Middle East and politicians in Norway but gave no further information about the potential targets or the time frame for any attacks.
Police in Oslo said there had never been a "concrete or acute threat" against any Norwegian citizens or interests.
The early-morning raids on Thursday targeted the Rawti Shax group, which police said was a Kurdish Sunni Muslim association dedicated to overthrowing the government of Iraq's Kurdistan region and installing rule by sharia, the Islamic code of law and morals.
Italy's national Carabinieri police led the investigation, with security forces in Italy, Britain, Norway, Finland, Germany and Switzerland taking part in Thursday's swoop.
Rawti Shax, which means "The New Course", also has cells in Greece, Sweden, Iraq, Iran and Syria, according to the European Union's judicial co-operation unit Eurojust.
"This was an incredibly difficult and complicated investigation that has been going on for five years," said prosecutor Franco Roberti, the head of Italy's anti-mafia and anti-terrorism unit.
A total of 17 arrest warrants were issued, almost all for Iraqi Kurds, and 15 suspects were picked up immediately.
All of them face international terrorism charges, the Carabinieri said in a statement.
As well as the arrests, authorities in the various countries searched 26 premises and seized electronic devices and documents, Eurojust said in a statement.
Among the suspects was Mullah Krekar, the one-time leader of the Ansar al-Islam militant group. He received his arrest warrant in a prison in Norway where he was already serving an 18-month term for making death threats against a Kurdish man and encouraging others to commit criminal acts in a TV interview.
Krekar went to Norway as a refugee in 1991 and had earlier been deemed a threat to national security. However, Norwegian authorities did not expel him to Iraq because authorities there could not guarantee he would not be executed.
Italy said it would now seek to extradite him.
