Panic in Sweden as police arrest suspect 'plotting Islamist terror attack'

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Police arrested a suspect in Stockholm, Sweden on suspicion of preparing a terror attack. (Image: Getty)
A person has been arrested in Stockholm on suspicion of preparing a terror attack.

Police in Sweden said the person arrested is suspected of preparing a terrorist offence and preparing an act of murder, as well as aggravated participation in a terrorist organisation and for preparing to violate legislation on the use of explosives.

The investigation is not related to any ongoing cases, the force said in a statement.

This in the wake of a shooting at an adult education centre in central Sweden last week. The Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson branded the incident, which saw 10 people including the gunman killed, "worst mass shooting in Swedish history".



Göran Adamson, a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Uppsala University, told Express.co.uk in May 2024 that Sweden had become a "capital of violence" and that the country was bordering on "civil war".

Bombings and shootings in the major Swedish cities have become alarmingly common.

According to official figures from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå), the number of annual deaths per million from gun violence is over double the European average.

In 2017 saw 281 shootings in Sweden and five years later that number had grown to 391, 62 of which were fatal.

For comparison, according to the Office for National Statistics, the UK saw 28 people killed by shooting in the year ending March 2022.

On those figures, the Swedish rate of death by shooting was more than twice the UK's, despite Sweden having a population less than a sixth the size.

A research paper published by Mr Adamson in 2020 showed a link between soaring crime and the increase in immigration into the country.

He found that in 2017, 58% of those “suspected of crime on reasonable grounds” had migrated to Sweden. However for murder, attempted murder and manslaughter the figures grew to 73%. For robbery the figure was 70%.

The 60-year-old academic explained: “Even though most migrants are law-abiding people… still the likelihood of a migrant - especially from the Middle East or Africa, especially below 50 years of age - committing a crime is much, much higher than for a Swedish person. These are just the facts.”