[continued from previous message]   
      
   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   
   mind, Salihu fears it may one day not just be gangsters who live in fear   
   of being targeted by “murder ads”.   
      
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   “If we allow these criminals to become more powerful, I fear that our   
   democratic institutions will come under pressure, be it prosecutors, or   
   journalists – I myself would feel much more afraid,” Salihu adds. “These   
   guys are predators. You have to stand up to them, not back off.”'   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)