Bombings in Sweden

Bombings in Sweden are attacks and sabotage using explosive devices by criminals in Sweden. The weapons used are weapons such as hand grenades and explosives intended for either civilian or military use. Legal authorities use the term "allmänfarlig ödeläggelse genom sprängning" (English: damage by explosive blast) and media in Sweden use the shorter term "sprängdåd". This crime was not categorized separately prior to 2017. In 2018 there were 162 explosions, and in the first nine months of 2019 97 explosions were registered, usually carried out by criminal gangs. According to Swedish police commissioner Anders Thornberg in 2019, there is no international equivalent to Sweden's wave of bombings.
Usage of hand grenades reached a significant peak in 2016. According to police in Gothenburg and Malmö in 2016, the use of hand grenades by criminals in Sweden is a phenomenon which is unusual for all comparable countries both inside and outside the EU. According to criminologists Manne Gerell and Amir Rostami, the only other country that keeps track of hand grenade explosions is Mexico. While Mexico has a murder rate 20 times that of Sweden, on the specific category of grenade explosions per capita the two countries were comparable at the time. According to police authorities, many of the hand grenades used are weapons which originate from the Yugoslav Wars, and the hand grenades found by the police are exclusively the ex-Yugoslavian M75 hand grenade.
Explosions have occurred in both rich and low-income areas. Swedish police do not record or release the ethnicity of convicted criminals, but Linda H Straaf head of intelligence at National Operations Department says they are from poor areas and many are second- or third-generation immigrants. Swedish media sometimes are accused of not covering the topic enough, but a 2019 study by polling company Kantar Sifo found that law and order was still the most covered news topic on Swedish TV and radio and on social media.<ref name="bbc.com/news/"></ref>
In 2019, Denmark, worried about the bombings in Sweden, introduced passport controls on its border checkpoints with Sweden for the first time since the 1950s. In September 2019, police in Malmö issued a general warning to be vigilant for explosive devices when walking the city at night.
Perpetrators.
According to police the attackers are part of the same gangs which also increasingly engaged in gun crime leading to a wave in shootings. While there were 17 deadly shootings in 2011, there were 45 in 2018. Ethnicity is not recorded and published for either suspect or convicted criminals, but according to police intelligence chief Linda H Staaf many are second or third generation immigrants, are members of disadvantaged groups and have grown up in disadvantaged areas.
Geographic distribution.
Most of the attacks were earlier recorded in low-income suburbs in Malmö, Gothenburg and Stockholm. In a more recent trend, more affluent districts also experienced attacks, such as a detonation in Bromma.
Timeline of noted bombings.
According to a December 2018 Swedish Television interview with researcher , Sweden has a high number of hand grenade attacks compared to neighbouring countries Denmark, Norway and Germany. While gun homicides were on the rise in the 2011-2018 time span, according to a study at Malmö University the number of hand grenade attacks had shown a strong increase in the same period and a total of 116 hand grenade detonations were recorded. Rostami said criminologists in Sweden do not know why there was a strong increase and why Sweden has a much higher rate than countries close by.
2012.
In 2012 the Swedish National Forensic Centre investigated 88 incidents involving explosives.
2016.
In 2016 police forensic experts reported that the number of annual investigations had increased from 100 to 150 annually in the 2014-2015 time span.
According to Amir Rostami, 2016 saw a record number of hand grenade attacks.
2017.
In 2017, the Swedish National Forensic Centre investigated 211 incidents involving explosives, of which 43 involved hand grenades.
2018.
In the first half of 2018, 75 bombings were reported to authorities and the total for the year was 162. Of the 162, 47 were in the Stockholm region and 56 were in the southern region which includes Malmö.
In January 2018, Minister for Justice Morgan Johansson called for an "amnesty" for illegal explosives after the death of bystander Daniel Cuevas Zuniga who was killed by a hand grenade. The "amnesty", where people could hand over grenades to authorities without being prosecuted, had the aim of getting explosive weapons off the streets.
2019.
In the first three months of 2019, there were 48 bombings in Sweden. By June 2019, Malmö and Stockholm had the most bombings. Up until July there were 120 bombings compared to 83 the same period the previous year. Up until 1 November, this represented double the number of detonations compared to the previous year.
Public broadcaster Sveriges Radio published a news item on 1 November entitled "Unusually high workload for the national bomb disposal unit." The unit had processed 98 bombings in 2019 up until 1 November.