Sweden says Iran using Swedish gangs to target other states

STOCKHOLM

Iran is recruiting Swedish criminal gang members, some of them children, as proxies to commit "acts of violence" against Israeli and other interests in Sweden, Sweden's intelligence agency said on May 30.

The announcement came two weeks after night-time gunfire was reported outside Israel's embassy in Stockholm, and three months after police found a live grenade lying on the grounds of the Israeli compound.

"The Iranian regime is using criminal networks in Sweden to carry out acts of violence against other states, groups or people in Sweden that it considers a threat," the intelligence service, commonly known as Sapo, said in a statement.

It cited in particular "Israeli and Jewish interests, targets and operations in Sweden.”

"Iran has previously used violence in other countries in Europe in a bid to silence critical voices and perceived threats against its regime," Sapo said.

"Our assessment is that this is a regional conflict that has spread globally and now also includes Sweden as an arena for this conflict," Sapo's counterintelligence chief Daniel Stenling told a press conference.

Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said his ministry had summoned Iran's charge d'affaires for talks "to express how seriously we view this information.”

"Sweden will not be a platform where state actors use criminal networks to promote their own interests," Billstrom said in remarks emailed to AFP.

The Scandinavian country has struggled to contain surging gang violence in recent years, with shootings and bombings now weekly occurrences across the country.

The gang violence was originally linked to control over the drugs market, but was "changing shape very quickly,” the deputy head of the Swedish Police National Operations Division, Hampus Nygards, told the press conference.