Police work on the site where an explosion damaged a residential building in central Stockholm, Sweden January 13, 2020. Janerik Henriksson/TT News Agency/via REUTERS
Reuters: Sweden suffers surge in bomb attacks as gang violence rises
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A surge in drug-linked gang-violence in Sweden led to a 60% increase in bomb blasts in 2019, government statistics showed on Thursday, as police work to rid the streets of explosives and guns with more officers on patrol.
Sweden has been hit by a wave of shootings and bombings over the past couple of years which police have linked to gang conflicts in major cities, shocking Swedes, who have long considered their country one of the safest in the world.
Some 257 bomb attacks were reported to police last year, up from 162 the previous year, the statistics from the National Council for Crime Prevention showed.
The agency did not give any information about the types of explosives used most frequently or any other details, but Swedish media have reported some attacks using make-shift bombs made from vacuum flasks packed with explosive material.
The figures were part of a report on crime rates which showed that overall, the number of crimes reported to the police was slightly down last year.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: The above Reuters post does not say and/or describe the composition of these gangs, but the BBC is not hesitant to say who they are .... Sweden's 100 explosions this year: What's going on? (Maddy Savage, BBC).
