More are being recruited to the pressed bomb squad

During Thursday night, the police's national bomb protection went off to three detonations only in the Stockholm region. Earlier this week, the bomb squad was called to several incidents in southern Sweden and roughly so it has looked like in recent years.

- Over the past two years we have seen a sharp rise in the number of blasts. Preferably at first in the metropolitan regions of Stockholm, Malmö, Gothenburg, but now also elsewhere in the country, says National Bomb Protection Operations Chief Jon Wåhlander.

The burden on the bomb squad has been the highest so far this year and there is no indication that its workload will decrease.

- In 2019 we are at a level that we have never done before and it is at a constant rate right now. In almost every day, we respond to various incidents related to either blasts or connections to blasts. We are working to try to get a more customized resource for the current threat scenario, which means that we need more.

Jon Wåhlander says that both politicians and police officers understood that bomb protection must be allowed to increase.

- Everyone is very aware that this is a serious problem and that it is we who are at the forefront and handle this.

And right now, more bombing techniques are under way for the group. But it takes a long time before they are ready to embark on more and more assignments.

- From an identified need, it takes a long time for us to have ready-made bomb techniques that can relieve us of our mission. It takes about a year and a half from when we identified a need for us to have people who join and staff our action teams, says Jon Wåhlander.

National bomb protection works throughout the country but is based in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. And so the operative boss thinks it will remain, even if there are more.

- Right now there are no plans to locate us in more places than where we are today to execute the assignment. But we have long distances. We cover the whole of Sweden's surface, so that we get assignments in upper Norrland we have long advances and that is a challenge.