Norway's police, who have been authorised to carry firearms for the past year due to a heightened threat of Islamist attacks, will be unarmed again now that the threat level has been lowered, police said Friday. National police chief Odd Reidar Humlegard told reporters the measure would take effect on November 17. The country's 6,000 uniformed police officers will "have to keep their weapons locked in their patrol cars like they did previously," he said.
Norwegian police were authorised to carry their service weapons on their belts in November 2014 after the country's intelligence service PST raised the threat level because of the risk of an attack. A year later, the PST said arrests in Jihadist circles and the departure of radicalised militants to the Middle East had significantly reduced the likelihood of an attack and reduced the threat level at the end of October.