[continued from previous message]   
      
   > rifle, firing a spray of bullets towards the front door of a property   
   > within an apartment block. It was said to have been filmed to prove the   
   > killing was carried out.   
   >   
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   > So what has gone wrong? Part of the blame, Salihu says, is down to the   
   > social blights common to most of Europe’s more impoverished multi-racial   
   > neighbourhoods. Joblessness and discrimination limit many youngsters’   
   > sense of prospects. TV gang dramas, meanwhile, often “highlight the   
   > flashy parts of gang life – money, respect, power – but leave out the   
   > trauma, manipulation, and tragic consequences.”   
   >   
   > Yet the sense of failure is all the more acute in Sweden, long an open   
   > door compared to other European nations. Ever since the 1960s, when it   
   > first styled itself as a humanitarian superpower, it has taken in those   
   > fleeing trouble abroad, be it Americans fleeing the Vietnam war draft,   
   > Soviet dissidents, or Iraqis fleeing Saddam Hussein’s regime. In the   
   > 1990s came refugees from the Balkans, and in the last decade asylum   
   > seekers from Syria, Afghanistan and sub-Saharan Africa have arrived.   
   > Anxious not to create “parallel societies”, Swedish governments have   
   > long funded social integration programmes alongside the waves of   
   > migration.   
   >   
   > Ulf Kristersson   
   > On the subject of the deadly rise of gang crime, Ulf Kristersson, the   
   > country’s centre-Right prime minister has said that ‘Sweden has never   
   > seen anything like it before’ - Getty   
   > But parallel societies have sprung up regardless, according to Salihu,   
   > who lived until the age of eight on his family’s farm in Kosovo, where   
   > even cars were a luxury.   
   >   
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   > “We had a horse and cart, like in the Borat movies,” he says. The family   
   > fled ahead of the war with Serbia in 1998, which saw their home burned   
   > down, settling in a provincial town in central Sweden.   
   >   
   > “I remember my mother breaking down in tears when she learned that her   
   > brother had been killed while fighting in the war,” Salihu recalls.   
   > “I’ve always felt that if I’d stayed in Kosovo, I might not be alive   
   > today.”   
   >   
   > Even back then, about 20 per cent of his new Swedish classmates were   
   > migrants like him. But he also mixed with kids whose parents had college   
   > educations and second homes – a vision of the Swedish dream to aspire   
   > to. Today, he says, his old neighbourhood no longer even glimpses that   
   > dream.   
   >   
   > “I went back there in 2014 as a journalist, and basically every kid in   
   > the school was now from a migrant background,” he says. “That makes it   
   > harder for them to learn Swedish properly, and they won’t see what I saw   
   > as a child. Society has become much more segregated. Swedes welcome   
   > people from every corner of the world, but don’t actually want to live   
   > with them as neighbours.”   
   >   
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   > Salihu doesn’t blame it all on racism, however. In his new book, for   
   > example, he writes of gang-plagued areas where single mothers are often   
   > raising eight children alone. Many gang members he interviews,   
   > meanwhile, don’t blame society or their parents, but “actively choose   
   > their lifestyle”.   
   >   
   > “They’ve had all the opportunities, with siblings who’ve graduated and   
   > got good jobs, yet still they’ve chosen the bad path.”   
   >   
   > The “bad path”, unfortunately, is open to anyone who chooses to answer a   
   > murder ad. Recruits are sometimes directed to their targets via live   
   > smart-phone feeds, and then ordered to film their handiwork. Last   
   > December, a killer using Go Pro footage filmed himself gunning down a   
   > Syrian-born rapper, Ninos Khouri, in a multi-storey car-park.   
   >   
   > Gang leaders also cultivate cult presences on social media, their   
   > followers often taking exception to less-than-flattering coverage by   
   > journalists like Salihu. When one former Foxtrot affiliate, Mustapha   
   > al-Jubouri, broadcast a video revealing he had faked his own death –   
   > waving a golden Kalashnikov around to prove he was still alive – his   
   > acolytes singled out Salihu for criticism on a live Instagram feed. “It   
   > was being watched by 20,000 people,” says Salihu, who keeps his home   
   > address secret. “How could Instagram not do something about that,   
   > knowing what kind of people are involved, inciting murder and   
   > threatening journalists?”   
   >   
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   > Sweden’s gang menace is also spreading overseas, including to Britain.   
   > In 2022, Anis Hemissi, a kickboxer of Tunisian descent, was jailed in   
   > the UK for murdering Flamur Beqiri, a Swedish-Albanian drug kingpin   
   > gunned down outside his home in Battersea.   
   >   
   > Anis Hemissi   
   > Anis Hemissi, a kickboxer of Tunisian descent, was jailed in the UK for   
   > murdering Flamur Beqiri   
   > Swedish police are also hunting a 25-year-old gangster suspected of   
   > murdering two British travel agents, Juan Cifuentes and Farooq   
   > Abdulrazak, shot dead during a business trip to the city of Malmö last   
   > July. Their families insist they had no gang connections.   
   >   
   > To complicate matters, many gangsters also have bolt-holes in the Middle   
   > East, where family connections sometimes shield them from arrest.   
   > Al-Jubouri issued his “comeback” video from Iraq, while Foxtrot’s   
   > leader, Rawa “The Fox” Majid, fled to Turkey six years ago, taking   
   > citizenship to avoid extradition. He reportedly owned a luxury flat in   
   > Istanbul, from where he continued to wage gang feuds remotely before   
   > then apparently fleeing to Iran.   
   >   
   > With the far-Right, anti-immigrant Swedish Democrats now attracting one   
   > in five of Swedish voters, the government has been trying to push back   
   > on the gang problem. Jail terms have been increased significantly for   
   > juveniles, who used to get away with as little as three years’ custody   
   > for murder.   
   >   
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   > Thanks to the cracking of Encrochat – which let police forces all over   
   > Europe eavesdrop on gangsters’ plans – around 400 Swedish criminals have   
   > been jailed.   
   >   
   > Lawyers pictured during a drug trial that followed the decryption of   
   > encryption softwares Encrochat and Sky ECC   
   > Lawyers pictured during a drug trial that followed the decryption of   
   > encryption softwares Encrochat and Sky ECC - AFP   
   > Swedish politicians are also calling for curbs on social media use to   
   > stop the “murder ads” – something Salihu warns could also spread to the   
   > UK. “You too may end up with British child soldiers, just as we are   
   > facing this crisis in Sweden,” he says. He points out that while   
   > Britain’s tougher firearms laws mean shootings are less frequent, knife   
   > crime is almost as bad: in the 12 months to March 2024, 57 under-25s   
   > died in stabbings, 17 of them under 16.   
   >   
   > But while Sweden’s gun killings have now dipped – last year saw 45 –   
   > Salihu fears the underlying cause for the violence continues to lurk. He   
   > also points out that the gang footsoldiers are now attracting far more   
   > dangerous paymasters than common criminals. A year ago, Swedish   
   > officials accused Iran of recruiting local gang members for attacks on   
   > Israeli interests in Europe, including Israel’s Stockholm Embassy, where   
   > a live grenade was found in the grounds.   
   >   
   > Last month, Washington sanctioned the Foxtrot network over the attacks,   
   > saying The Fox had “specifically cooperated” with Tehran. With that in   
      
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   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)