In the early hours of Thursday, a loud explosion rocked a quiet residential street of newly built single-family homes north of the Swedish city of Uppsala.
Soha Saad, 24, was killed in the explosion. She lived with her parents and had recently completed teacher training. In footage of the aftermath, her mother can be heard screaming for her daughter and cursing the nation to which they once fled.
Saad was one of three victims of gang violence in a violent 12-hour period last week and one of 12 people killed in September – Sweden’s deadliest month since December 2019.
In the same 12 hours, an 18-year-old rapper was shot dead in a brazen attack during a soccer training session at the Mälarhöjden sports field in Fruängen, southern Stockholm, and hours later a man was killed and another injured in a shooting in Jordbro, south of the capital.
The trio were the latest victims of the “terrorist” gang violence that has gripped Sweden. Reports of assassinations, child soldiers and bombings regularly appear on the front pages of the country’s newspapers.
In the early hours of Thursday, a loud explosion rocked a quiet residential street of newly built single-family homes north of the Swedish city of Uppsala. Soha Saad, 24, was killed in the explosion. She lived with her parents and had recently completed teacher training. It is believed their neighbors, relatives of Sweden’s most notorious criminal, were the targets
Mikael Tenezos, “The Greek” (left), and Rawa Majid, “The Kurdish Fox” (right), are reportedly high-profile drug traffickers at war with each other in Sweden
Soha Saad (pictured), 24, died in the explosion that rocked her family home last week
The bomb, planted outside Saad’s family’s home in the early hours of Thursday morning in the middle of the night, was believed to have been intended for neighbors – relatives of a man who is now the most notorious criminal in modern Swedish history.
“Kurdish Fox”, whose real name is Rawa Majid, became a household name in Sweden last Christmas as the feud between the 37-year-old’s Foxtrot criminal network and the Dalen gang, led by Mikael “The Greek” Tenezos, escalated. 25, fear spread across several cities as they fought for shares in the country’s highly lucrative drug market.
The feud between the two gang leaders soon seemed to cool, but in the following months there were several Foxtrot-related violent crimes involving teenagers and young adults – both as perpetrators and victims.
This week, a 16-year-old boy goes on trial accused of executing a 15-year-old at close range at a sushi restaurant in the Stockholm suburb of Skogås in January.
Ali Shafaei had escaped persecution by the Taliban and fled Afghanistan in 2019.
According to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, the attack was carried out on the orders of one of Majid’s allies.
The ally, 20-year-old Ibou Badije – who goes by the nickname “Louise Gucci” – was recently sentenced to 18 years in prison for ordering a series of shootings by young teenagers earlier this year.
The shootings included one on January 20 in Fruängen, southern Stockholm, where the 14-year-old gunmen filmed themselves firing an assault rifle through a front door and posted the footage online.
At the end of July, 14-year-old friends Mohamed Suleiman and Layth Al-Azzawi were reported missing. They were later found dead in two different forest areas – one north and one south of Stockholm.
Expressen newspaper reported that the teenagers had “sold weapons from the Foxtrot network, run by “Kurdish Fox” Rawa Majid.
The streets of the Swedish capital have descended into carnage amid a spate of lawlessness, with last Wednesday’s three murders occurring within 12 hours
It is believed that the bomb, which was planted outside the home of Saad’s family (pictured after the explosion) in the middle of the night on Thursday, was intended for their neighbors – relatives of a man who is now the most notorious criminal in modern Sweden history is
One man was killed and another injured in a shooting in Jordbro, south of the Swedish capital, on Wednesday 27th. Police officers patrol the crime scene
Police officers are investigating the crime scene where a young man was shot dead at a sports field in southern Stockholm on Wednesday evening, one of three suspected gang killings that day
Majid was born in Iraqi Kurdistan but grew up in Uppsala, a university town about an hour’s drive north of the capital Stockholm.
He began his career as an ice cream seller, but soon became involved in violent crime and drugs before eventually taking over the management of a drug smuggling ring.
He left the country with his young family in 2019 and has since gained citizenship with a “golden visa” in Turkey thanks to property investments worth £200,000, SVT reports.
Since Sweden does not have an extradition agreement with Turkey, the authorities’ hands are tied.
Rawa Majid’s former deputy is also hiding in Turkey: the 33-year-old convicted drug dealer Ismail Abdo, who goes by the pseudonym “Dr. Phil” and “The Strawberry” to help Majid control his criminal empire via encrypted apps.
According to public broadcaster SVT, the former brothers in arms attacked each other earlier this year when one betrayed the other over a drug deal.
On Thursday September 7th, a 60-year-old woman was shot dead in her home in Uppsala. She was “Strawberry’s” mother.
Retaliation for the killing of the women came a few days later, when a house in the same town was hit by a hail of bullets.
The residents had no known gang connections, however their neighbor was found to be Rawa Majid’s mother Law.
Like 24-year-old Soha Saad, who had three weeks to live at the time, they happened to be living next door to the wrong person.
“The internal division in the Foxtrot network has made the group’s core individuals – people who were previously relatively safe in their £1.5 million villas in Bodrum – more vulnerable,” says Diamant Salihu, a journalist who has written several books on gang violence has in Sweden, says Dagens Nyheter.
Former friends who know each other’s secrets have become enemies, which is one reason the violence has escalated so much.
The picture shows a teenager armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle firing bullets into the home of a well-known rapper’s ex-girlfriend as a scare measure in January this year
Shots can be seen after the attack, apparently aimed at scaring a rapper’s ex-girlfriend
Twenty years ago, Sweden had one of the lowest proportions of gun violence deaths per capita in Europe. Now it sits at the top of the league, at 2.5 times the European average.
Expressen reports that between September 10 and September 28, 11 people died and several others were injured in a total of 32 shootings and bombings.
They include 13-year-old Milo, 19-year-old Giovanni Farias, 17-year-old Abdullah Janabi and an 18-year-old “famous rapper” who was shot dead in front of dozens of children at a sports field in Fruängen, south of Stockholm.
All had known ties to Foxtrot.
A number of attacks also targeted individuals with family ties to Team Strawberry or Team Kurdish Fox – or missed the intended victim entirely.
A 25-year-old was killed with bullets allegedly intended for a relative of Rawa Majid, and a 70-year-old blind man was shot dead in the bar of his favorite establishment.
The elderly grandparents of a Majid ally were fortunately unharmed when someone fired a gun through their window.
Of course there was also Soha Saad.
“It appears that some of the perpetrators of the wave of violence are not equipped for the kind of mission they have undertaken,” Expressen crime correspondent Kim Malmgren told the newspaper’s readers last week.
“No wonder, considering how many of them are young boys – 13, 14, 15 years old – whose radicalization into the criminal environment is occurring at record speed.
“They have very little weapons knowledge, no bombing skills.” As several crimes attest, some of the perpetrators don’t appear to be great card readers either,” he wrote.
While the gang leaders in their late 20s and 30s enjoy the fruits of their illegal labor hidden in countries like Turkey, Spain, Mexico and even Britain, their soldiers in Sweden are getting younger and younger.
Convicted criminals under the age of 18 are sent to nursing homes or facilities for young offenders. For offenders under the age of 21, age is taken into account, resulting in significantly shorter sentences.
This gave rise to the underworld expression: “Take a four to become a 100 man” – meaning they gain status and notoriety by committing a serious crime on behalf of an older gang leader (and spending less time in prison than an adult career criminal). .
Police officers are seen outside Soha Saad’s home after it was destroyed by an explosion early Thursday
Footage of the bomb’s aftermath shows the young woman’s building being torn apart and the smashed windows hanging haphazardly down the front of her home – a scene that witnesses have compared to a war zone
While the country is now facing what Police Commissioner Anders Thornberg calls “unprecedented terrorist violence,” experts say the country’s current situation has been developing for several years.
The vast majority of both victims and perpetrators have a migrant background, some are newcomers, but the majority were born and raised in Sweden – albeit as children of migrant parents.
These children are more likely to live in poor, low-priority neighborhoods and view crime as a path to a life of money, power and status far beyond what they could achieve on the right side of the law.
During a press conference on Friday, Police Commissioner Thornberg warned that “there are children who contact these gangs to become murderers.”
The Swedish government said on the same day that it would clear the way for the military to provide more support to the police in combating the crime wave.
Under Swedish law, the military is currently prohibited from assisting police in any situation where the use of force may be necessary, except in the case of terrorist attacks or war.
But after a meeting with the heads of the police and armed forces, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said that the two now had an official mandate to explore ways of working together after the 12 deaths in September alone.
“The wave of violence is … unprecedented in Sweden, but also in Europe, no other country has a situation like ours,” he told reporters.
“Political naivety and ignorance have brought us to this point.” Irresponsible immigration policies and failed integration have brought us to this point.
“Exclusion and parallel societies feed criminal gangs and provide them with space for the ruthless recruitment of children and the training of future murderers.” Swedish legislation is not designed for gang wars and child soldiers. But we’re changing that now,” he promised.
This week, a 16-year-old boy goes on trial accused of executing 15-year-old Ali Shafaei at close range at a sushi restaurant in the Stockholm suburb of Skogås in January
Ali Shafaei had escaped persecution by the Taliban and fled Afghanistan in 2019
Kristersson said the government had received offers of help from across the Nordic region, adding that his counterparts in Norway, Finland and Denmark did not want “Swedish gang crime to gain a foothold in their countries.”
The idea of “parallel societies” has already been discussed in Sweden in connection with the connection between criminal gangs and migrant communities.
In April 2022, then Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said that Islamism had been allowed to ferment on the one hand and right-wing extremism on the other.
“Racial separation has gone so far that we have parallel societies in Sweden,” said the Social Democratic Prime Minister at the time.
“We live in the same country, but in completely different realities.” “We will have to rethink our previous truths and make difficult decisions.”
She said that while immigration to Sweden had been “significant”, integration had been poor. “Society was too weak, the resources for police and social services were too weak.”
In addition to announcing that the police would receive support from the military, Kristersson also announced a number of other measures to support officers.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said that after the deaths of twelve people in September alone, the police and military now had an official mandate to examine possibilities for cooperation
These include control zones, anonymous witnesses and the right to extradite known gang members with foreign nationality – even if they have not been convicted of any crime.
However, some of these are still a long way from being implemented, such as “youth prisons” for 15 to 17 year olds, which will not become a reality until 2026.
“In these gangs, blood is for blood.” “I fear that many more deaths, including many outsiders, will be necessary before the tide turns,” says Diamant Salihu.
Last year, 62 people were shot in Sweden – home to 10.4 million people – and police say 42 people have died so far this year.