Global Courant
Two powerful explosions ripped through homes in central Sweden, injuring at least three people and damaging buildings, leaving rocks and window parts scattered outside.
Late on Monday an explosion took place in Hasselby, a suburb of the capital Stockholm. In the early hours of Tuesday, an explosion in Linköping, some 180 kilometers to the southwest, tore the facade of a three-story building, leaving debris across a parking lot.
It was not known whether the explosions were related.
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Swedish Radio said on Tuesday that the explosion in Linköping was linked to a feud between criminal gangs, a growing problem in Sweden with drive-by shootings and bombings. Two gangs – one led by a Swedish-Turkish dual national living in Turkey, the other by his former lieutenant – are reportedly fighting over drugs and weapons.
So far this year there have been 261 shootings, killing 36 people and injuring 73. The count does not include the latest explosions.
People look at the damage caused by an explosion in a residential building in Linköping, Sweden, on September 26, 2023. (Stefan Jerrevång/TT News Agency via AP)
Police said residents in the affected area in Linköping were evacuated to a nearby sports facility. Three people were taken to hospital in Hasselby. Their circumstances were unknown.
No one has been arrested, police said.
After the explosions, the Swedish government said it will hold a meeting to identify measures that can be implemented quickly. Sweden’s Ministers of Justice and Civil Protection, Gunnar Strömmer and Carl-Oskar Bohlin, will participate along with other authorities, including representatives of the Scandinavian country’s municipalities and regions.
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“We are now bringing together all relevant actors to jointly identify what can be done in the short and long term,” Strömmer told Swedish news agency TT.
“Criminals’ access to explosive goods must be cut off,” Bohlin told the Expressen newspaper.
Earlier this month, a 13-year-old boy was found shot in the head in a forest not far from his home near Stockholm. A prosecutor called his death a chilling example of “gross and utterly reckless gang violence.”
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On September 22, two people were killed and two injured when a gunman opened fire in a busy bar northwest of Stockholm. One of the dead, a 20-year-old man, was the likely target of the gunman, according to police, while the other three were believed to be bystanders. The motive remained unclear. Police said the shooting may have been part of a local personal conflict and there was some uncertainty as to whether it was related to the ongoing feud.
Sweden’s centre-right government has tightened laws to tackle gang-related crime, with the head of Sweden’s police saying earlier this month that warring gangs had brought an “unprecedented” wave of violence to the country.
