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Shots fired in a small-town pub: "Crime has reached unprecedented levels."
Photo: Henrik Hansson / dpa
After the recent alleged clashes between hostile criminal gangs in Sweden with three dead within less than 24 hours, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson wants to ask the military for help. In a televised address on Thursday, Kristersson said he would meet with the national police chief and the commander-in-chief of the military on Friday "to look at how the armed forces can support the police in the fight against the gangs." We're going to hunt down the gangs. We will defeat the gangs," he added.
Connections to criminal foxtrot network
On Wednesday evening, shortly after 19 p.m., a young man was shot dead in an affluent suburb of Stockholm near a sports facility where training with children was taking place. A few hours later, two people were injured in another suburb, according to police, one of whom later died. Three suspects were arrested. On Thursday night, a 25-year-old woman died in an explosion in a suburb of Uppsala.
According to information from Swedish broadcaster SVT, two of the fatal incidents have links to the criminal Foxtrot network, which is at the center of the latest wave of violence.
Sweden has been struggling with rampant gang crime for years, with gunshots and deliberate explosions. People die regularly, often young men or minors. In the wake of the suspected internal gang conflict at the Foxtrot network, the violence recently escalated again – eleven people have already been shot dead this month, including bystanders. This makes September the deadliest month in terms of gun violence since the end of 2019, SVT reported.
Police representative Catarina Bowall told journalists in Uppsala: "Crime has reached unprecedented levels. The situation in Uppsala and the rest of the country is very serious."
muk/AFP/dpa