Swedish security police lowers terror threat level from four to three
Advertisement
The Swedish Security Service (Säpo) raised the level in August 2023 to "high threat" ‒ the fourth level on a scale of five ‒ after angry reactions to a series of protests involving desecrations of the Quran made the country a "prioritised target".
"Propaganda against Sweden has subsided and Sweden is not specifically mentioned as a target," Fredrik Hallström, head of operations at the Swedish Security Service, told a press conference.
"We do not see the same intense flow of attack threats directed at Sweden," he added.
Säpo said it now considered the terror alert level to be at "elevated threat" ‒ the third level on its five-point scale.
Hallström cautioned that with "an elevated threat, there is room for a terrorist attack to occur".
A series of Quran burnings across the country ‒ most notably by Iraqi Christian Salwan Momika ‒ in the summer of 2023 sparked outrage in the Muslim world.
It strained relations between Sweden and several Middle Eastern countries, and Iraqi protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad twice in July 2023, starting fires within the compound on the second occasion.
Advertisement
Momika ended up facing charges of inciting ethnic hatred, but in January of this year he was fatally shot in an apartment just hours before the court was due to deliver its ruling.
His co-protester Salwan Najem, also of Iraqi origin, was ultimately found guilty of inciting ethnic hatred during four Quran burnings in 2023.
Despite the lowered threat level, Charlotte von Essen, head of Säpo, stressed that "Sweden is in a serious security situation".
"The worst in many years," von Essen told reporters.
The Säpo chief pointed to the fact that the war in Ukraine was still ongoing.
"Foreign powers ‒ and Russia in particular ‒ are carrying out extensive security-threatening activities in and against Sweden," she said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Local Sweden
4 days ago
- Local Sweden
Säpo bodyguards' Strava runs 'reveal locations of Swedish PM and royals'
Bodyguards from the Swedish Security Police (Säpo) have accidentally revealed the location of Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and members of the royal family on multiple occasions by uploading runs or rides to the Strava training app, it has been claimed. Advertisement The information was leaked when seven bodyguards uploaded their runs to popular training app Strava, newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN) reports. The bodyguards had public accounts on the app and uploaded runs that included maps of routes, the time of day they were carried out and even the pace. This information, the newspaper reports, could in the worst case scenario be used by someone planning an attack on Kristersson to work out his location and address. Strava information has previously been used for this type of attack elsewhere. In 2023, a Russian commander was killed whilst out on a run ‒ his last recorded workout on Strava was 'liked' by the head of Ukraine's military intelligence services. Using the Strava info Dagens Nyheter was able to map Kristersson's location on at least 35 occasions, including discovering the location of his home in Södermanland, which is classified, and the hotel the prime minister and his wife were staying at when on a private trip to Åland. The bodyguards' Strava runs also revealed the location of other officials, like members of the royal family, former prime ministers Magdalena Andersson and Stefan Löfven, and Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson, the newspaper claimed. "This is very serious," security expert Carolina Angelis, who has a background in Swedish intelligence services, told Dagens Nyheter. "Potential threats use all open information which is available to map people and track their movement patterns. If you know that someone always runs on Djurgården on Saturdays at 3pm then it becomes much easier to plan an attack or kidnapping," she said. Advertisement The newspaper collected data on more than 1,400 runs, in Sweden and abroad, which in some cases revealed trips by public officials which had not been made public. Some of the bodyguards recorded runs from within Säpo's headquarters in Solna, providing information on their movements within the classified building. "The information revealed in this investigation is something we take very seriously," Carolina Björnsdotter Paasikivi, Säpo's head of security, told DN. "This is information which could be used to track Security Police activities. We're now investigating what effects this could have had." DN contacted Säpo and alerted them to the leak, giving them three days to fix it. Afterwards, the accounts were closed or made private. Paasikivi added that the agency "has routines for this" but that it appears that they have not been followed in some cases. "We're undertaking measures to make sure our guidelines are followed. Other than that, I can't go into our internal work in more detail other than we are taking measures to make sure it won't happen again."
Local Sweden
03-07-2025
- Local Sweden
'Sweden doesn't want me to stay here, but it doesn't want me to leave either'
Mahmut, originally from Turkey, came to Sweden as an asylum seeker back in 2017 due to political unrest in his home country. Now, he is in citizenship limbo and believes Swedish security police have branded him a security threat, without telling him why. Advertisement Mahmut* grew up in Turkey and completed his bachelor degree there before moving to the US for further study, eventually graduating with a PhD. "After two years I went back to Turkey to work," he tells The Local. "Then after another two years, in 2013, the political problems started." Mahmut was formerly a member of the Gülen movement, led by US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gülen. The Gülen movement was originally allied with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan prior to 2013. The alliance broke down after a prosecutor linked to the Gülen movement revealed serious governmental corruption. Erdogan responded by declaring it a terror movement, and blamed it for an attempted 2016 coup. Since then, many of the movement's members ‒ current and former ‒ have become refugees elsewhere. "I actually wasn't even living in Turkey at the time, but the coup and what happened in the aftermath really impacted all Turkish citizens globally," Mahmut explains. In 2016, his father was kidnapped by Turkish authorities while working outside Turkey. Mahmut realised quickly that Turkey had also issued an arrest warrant for him, and that he was no longer safe, even despite the fact he was living in a different country, so he decided to move to Sweden with his family. "We came to Sweden in 2017 and then I applied for asylum right away, because my passport was cancelled so I couldn't live in Sweden and apply for a work permit," he says. He found a job within a month of arrival. "I knew English and I had a PhD, so I've been working since then. I've been paying a lot of taxes," he says. He currently earns more than double Sweden's median salary in a tech role with a major Swedish company. Despite leaving the movement some years ago he cannot return to Turkey as there are still multiple ongoing investigations against him. Mahmut has had regular contact with the Migration Agency since arriving in Sweden in 2017. Photo: Susanne Lindholm/TT In Sweden, the first immigration hurdle the family encountered was a law change which tightened up the rules for permanent residency, meaning that families no longer qualified as a whole if one member of the family met the requirements. "I was working and my wife was learning Swedish, so because of that law we thought that 'OK, maybe I can continue working and my wife can learn Swedish first. And we decided to have a second child. But then the law changed and I got permanent residency but my wife couldn't get it because she wasn't working. So that was the first issue we had," he said. His wife decided to apply for a long-term residency permit under EU rules instead, a status known in Swedish as varaktigt bosatt. Shortly after he received permanent residency in 2021, he applied for citizenship along with his eldest daughter. "She was eight years old and got her Swedish citizenship after a month," he said. "But I didn't get my citizenship." READ ALSO: Swedish Migration Agency and government slammed over 'unreasonably' long citizenship queues Four years later, he's still waiting. "My second child was born in 2020 and she was given residency for three years, and then we applied to extend it in 2023. We have refugee status, and I can't really go to the Turkish embassy here, so my daughter was actually stateless. She didn't have Turkish citizenship, so had no ID at all because she didn't have a Turkish passport or identity card, and her refugee passport expired when her residency expired." Advertisement At the beginning of 2024, he started to become more suspicious about the fact that there was no movement in his case. "It had been almost two years since I applied for citizenship, almost two years since my wife applied for varaktig bosatt, and almost one year since my daughter applied for residence extension. I exchanged a lot of emails with the Migration Agency and they weren't really responding, just saying 'every case is unique'." In the meantime, a lot of Turkish citizens he knew in the same position – including his family members who had also sought asylum in Sweden – were having their applications approved. "My sister applied for citizenship around the same time, in 2021, but she got hers approved within seven months. My other sister and brother got theirs in eight or nine months, which was really weird – especially as I had been working for longer." Advertisement His family were effectively stranded in Sweden during this time, as his daughter did not have any ID or a valid residency permit. After speaking to a lawyer, he was told that he could order a dagboksblad, essentially a log of his family's case files from the Migration Agency. Once those were sent over, he discovered that not only was his application referred to Säpo, Sweden's security police, but so were both of his wife's applications. The head offices of Sweden's Security Police (Säpo) in Solna. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT In addition to that, there were multiple lines of redacted information from his daughter's application. She was four years old at the time. He asked his caseworker for more information on why his application had been sent to Säpo, and received a document saying that they had requested it because they thought he might be involved in terrorist activities or a threat to national security. "That was really shocking," he said. "It was really a nightmare. When I found out about this, I really went into a depression. From the beginning of 2024 until the end of that year I was speaking to two psychiatrists." Advertisement His situation has not only taken a mental toll, but also a physical one. "I've been dealing with lots of problems. I've been going to hospitals, had a colonoscopy, endoscopy, but they cannot diagnose what's wrong. But I have a lot of stomach pain. I can't leave home because when I get on a bus or in a car my blood pressure drops and I've passed out a couple of times. It caused serious hell because again, I don't think I deserve this." At the end of last year, his youngest daughter's residency application was finally approved, and then they applied for Swedish citizenship for her, which was also granted. His wife was also finally granted permanent residency. Mahmut is still waiting for his own citizenship application to go through, despite Säpo writing in a previous application that they had no comments, or in Swedish ej erinran, on his case. He has not been asked to show his passport or ID card, nor been sent a questionnaire of further questions to fill out. READ ALSO: The extra security questions Sweden's Migration Agency wants citizenship applicants to answer "When I spoke to my caseworker, they claimed that they are actually still waiting for approval from another government organisation. They already have approval from Säpo, so I asked them what kind of organisation they are waiting for approval from, and they said that they cannot name it." Advertisement Säpo press secretary Jonathan Svensson confirmed to The Local that Säpo is "one of the authorities which the Migration Agency consults". "Somewhat simplified, the Security Police have the possibility of leaving a comment, for example in cases where someone has applied for a residence permit or citizenship, if we think the person in question could be a security threat," he said. "The Security Police can also be consulted even if the person in question has previously been granted a residence permit." Svensson added that he was not able to give more specific information on how the two agencies collaborate. At this time, Mahmut was discussing his case with journalist Joakim Medin, from Dagens ETC – the same Medin who in 2025 was arrested and detained in Turkey for over a month after he had travelled to Istanbul to report on protests against the jailing of the city's mayor. Medin revealed in an article in July 2024 that the Migration Agency had sent residence permit and citizenship applications from Gülenists to the Foreign Ministry during Sweden's Nato accession process, citing the fact that approvals could affect Sweden's relations with Turkey. Advertisement Mahmut has many contacts with Gülenist refugees in Sweden who have fled Turkey. He has previously worked together with the Migration Agency to help refugees in his situation seek asylum in Sweden, meeting with Migration Agency leadership multiple times to tell them about the situation for members of the Gülen movement. His information has also provided the Migration Agency with background for legal positions made when handling cases involving current or former Gülenists. The Migration Agency confirmed to The Local that it does have to send some applications to the Foreign Ministry, but that it wasn't able to provide statistics on which nationalities or countries were affected. "The Migration Agency does, like other government agencies, have to inform the head of the Foreign Ministry when issues arise that could affect the relationship to another state or an international organisation," Rebecka Paulusson, a press communicator at the agency, told The Local. "The type of issue which could affect our relationship with another state can vary over time depending on external factors. The type of situation (or issue) in question can also vary. Typically, it concerns the decision we expect to make in a certain case, but it could also be another initiative or change in the management of the agency or its working methods." Paulusson added that in the first half of this year (including incomplete figures for June), the agency informed the Foreign Ministry about applications in 36 cases – 25 applications for residency permits and 11 for citizenship. Sweden's foreign ministry is located on Gustav Adolfs torg in Stockholm. Photo: Christine Olsson/TT The Local also contacted the Foreign Ministry for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication. Advertisement Mahmut believes, after all this, that his name is "on a list somewhere", as he was also flagged for a background check when changing career – unlike other non-EU colleagues. "During this extra security interview, after talking about why I was a refugee, the person asked me if anyone threatens me or my family to release secret information. I was really shocked. They asked me 'if someone offers you a lot of money, would you give out secret information', and I realised that she was questioning me and trying to understand if I was a spy." He passed the background check and was offered the job, but is concerned that the issue will follow him in the future. "I think I've been profiled by Säpo and I'm going to face this problem forever. There's no progress in my citizenship application because of this. I can't become a citizen." Mahmut is considering leaving Sweden but is effectively trapped in the country. "I don't have a Turkish passport because it's been cancelled by Turkey. I can't become a Swedish citizen. I have a refugee passport, so I can move to another country, but even if I do that I need to fill in some paperwork and in order to do that paperwork I need to have a valid passport. So Sweden doesn't want me to stay here, but it doesn't want me to leave either." "I feel like I'm trapped. And I'm really tired of this." *Note: Mahmut is not his real name.
Local Sweden
01-07-2025
- Local Sweden
Family member of Swedish minister an 'active neo-Nazi', reports claim
A minister in Sweden's government has a close relative who is active in right-wing extremist and neo-Nazi groups, according to Swedish media. Advertisement According to anti-racist magazine Expo, which broke the story, a Swedish government minister has a family member who is active in a violent neo-Nazi network and has tried to recruit people to the nationalist and antisemitic organisation Det fria Sverige (The Free Sweden) via social media. It's also claimed the family member has collaborated closely with an activist from Nordiska motståndsrörelsen (Nordic Resistance Movement). The unnamed person has reportedly also taken part in activities alongside Aktivklubb Sverige, another neo-Nazi organisation. According to Expo, Swedish security police (Säpo) were unaware of the connection between the minister and their family member. "Regarding what information we do or don't have when it comes to the work we do protecting the central government leadership, that's something we can't go into in detail," Säpo press spokesperson Johan Wikström told the TT newswire. Sweden's right-wing government is made up of ministers from three different parties: the Moderates, Liberals and Christian Democrats. There are no ministers from the far-right Sweden Democrats, who support the government. Kim Hakkarainen, a Swedish security expert with a background within the country's Military Intelligence and Security Service (MUST), told Expo that the situation is "serious". "That's a good word to sum it up," he said, adding that the minister's connection to the person in question could be a security risk. "It's a weakness which could be used by an antagonist, for example another state or antagonistic actor who wants to harm Sweden, in order to influence or use the minister's family member as an enabler," he said. Expo has contacted the minister, but has not received a response. The magazine managed to link the family member to six social media accounts on four different platforms. Five of the accounts were anonymous. These accounts included images of the person putting up racist stickers in a school and in their local neighbourhood. Advertisement The person's private account was followed by family members ‒ including the minister ‒ as well as people linked to the far-right. The family member's accounts were made private after the newspaper contacted the minister's press secretary.
