Sweden becomes the latest victim of vehicular terrorism

By J.W.

IT WAS a new location, but a familiar script. Just before 3pm on the afternoon of April 7th, afternoon strollers on Drottninggatan, a shopping street in Stockholm, scattered and fled before a lorry attempting to mow them down. The lorry eventually smashed into the front of a department store, and the driver escaped; the company that owned the vehicle announced that it had been stolen earlier that day. Four people were killed and 15 wounded in what was presumed to be a case of jihadist terrorism. The attack echoed those in Nice last July, when a man driving a hijacked lorry killed 86 people at a fireworks display, and in London in March, when a man drove his car onto the pavement at Westminster bridge, killing four pedestrians, before killing a policeman with a knife.

Swedish authorities reacted quickly, shutting down the public transit system, emptying shopping malls and searching major facilities such as the central train station. Commuters streamed out of the city centre, trying to get home on foot. Civil society showed its strength: within hours, citizens launched an initiative called OpenStockholm, inviting those stranded by the transit shutdown to come over for dinner or to stay the night. By sunset the central city was as quiet as a Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, investigators were tracking down the driver. Late in the evening police arrested a suspect who matched video images of a man at the scene. But they said they were still seeking other persons of interest, and did not know whether the attacker had acted alone or whether he was linked to a terrorist organisation. The Swedish press reported that explosives had been found in the truck, but those reports had not yet been confirmed.

The political establishment displayed the expected degree of unity. Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, a Social Democrat, held a press conference late in the evening, vowing that terrorists would not succeed in changing the Swedish way of life. Opposition centre-right parties expressed their support. The Social Democrats announced that security at their party congress, which begins on April 8th, would be intensified, and that Mr Lofven would not attend the first day as planned.

Whether or not the suspect was linked to jihadist networks, the attack is likely to provoke a renewed debate over the links between terrorism and immigration in Sweden. The country accepted over 160,000 asylum applicants during the migrant crisis of 2015—for its size, a higher rate than any other country in Europe. Terrorism plays into the hands of the far-right, anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats party, which some polls show has become the second-most-popular in the country, though it is shunned by the rest of the political establishment due to its Nazi roots.

Sweden’s government has been frequently criticised for the weakness of its anti-radicalisation programmes, which are far less substantial than those in Britain or Belgium. Until recently responsibility for co-ordinating efforts to combat violent extremism was delegated to the Ministry for Culture. (In March, the government announced it would be moved to the Ministry for Justice.) Security experts warn that jihadists may be recruiting a pool of petty criminals to employ in future attacks. Yet until this week, Sweden had been largely spared from terrorist violence, apart from an Iraqi man who detonated a suicide bomb in downtown Stockholm in 2010, killing only himself.

If the attack proves to be linked to jihadist organisations, it could weaken the government and strengthen the Sweden Democrats. But for the moment, the main response seems to be solidarity. Many Swedes had long expected that some sort of attack would come eventually, as they have elsewhere in Europe. The political effects may have already been priced in.