Damberg: Sweden is stronger against terrorism

Photo: Tomas Oneborg / SvD / TT

Terrorist at Drottninggatan on April 7, 2017. Stock Photography.

Prior to the second anniversary of the terrorist attack perpetrated at Drottninggatan on April 7, 2017 in Stockholm, Interior Minister, Mikael Damberg (s), presented his views on the state of readiness of Sweden to the management of a potential terrorist act.

– Sweden is stronger today. We have better preparedness and better equipment to deal with a terrorist attack against Sweden, says Mikael Damberg at TT.

He stressed that the capacities of the police and the security police have been strengthened.

– All police now have protective gear with heavy vest and bulletproof helmet, all field service personnel was trained to stop the deadly violence and police cars were equipped with weapons reinforcement, he said.

Important tools

Even in terms of preventing terrorist acts, Sweden has increased its capacity, he says. International cooperation with the security services of other countries has been developed and important tools for the police in the form of voltage signals, reading of secret data and data storage are in progress.

– We then see in the latest report of the security police that there is a risk of future terrorist attack by individuals. Then it's no longer necessary to resort to very sophisticated weapons or other efforts to create serious damage, but it's harder to protect yourself, he says. Mikael Damberg.

Immediately after the terrorist attack on Drottninggatan, politicians agreed that there was a need to enhance security in the public environment. In a report to the government last May, the Swedish Civil Protection Agency (MSB) proposed, inter alia, to strengthen physical protection measures in particularly vulnerable places and against vehicles used as weapons.

A lot to do

TT: What has happened since?

– I understand that there is a greater awareness that one has to be ready and that one has to deal with these problems nowadays. But much remains to be done in public environments to increase safety and security, says Damberg.

In this work, the municipalities are key players, but also private actors, responsible for example facilities of the center, he said.

– This is a responsibility that we have, we must plan and build for it.

The Minister of the Interior also pointed out that more surveillance cameras were an important action in this context.

The terrorist act also sparked a debate about police work with secrets. The aggressor Rakhmat Akilov had made an expulsion decision and would have actually left Sweden months before the attack. Politicians demanded that the police find and expel more.

But the number of internal controls carried out by extraterrestrials, the main tool of the police to find the hidden ones, reached last year what seems to be a fundamental note.

More extremists

According to Mikael Damberg, one problem is that countries do not want to receive their citizens, another is that there are too few repositories. However, it promises more repository sites for people already expelled this summer.

– If you carry out internal checks abroad, it is important that this also leads to evictions. Then agreements (with other countries) must be in place, but also standards. It is connected.

Despite the preventive measures against extremism that the government wants to insist on, the number of violent Islamists in Sweden has risen sharply. Today, according to the security police, they are more than ever before.

Many are also concerned about the threat of Swedes who have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.

– The security police control well the people who participated in the fighting in the region and we follow them at the individual level. According to Mikael Damberg, if any of them returned, the security police and their international cooperation organizations would have good control over the situation.

Can reproduce

– We also have work that we support in the region by gathering evidence, to ensure that the evidentiary situation is as good as possible to try either terrorist offenses or international crimes for those who participated in Syria and in Iraq.

TT: Can Swedes feel safer today than two years ago when the terrorist attack took place?

– You can feel that Sweden is more willing to prevent and deal with terrorist acts today. But do not be surprised by the fact that the level of terrorist threat is still high and that means that terrorist acts can still occur against Sweden, said the Minister of the Interior.