Sweden is considering deploying troops to stamp out gangland violence that has seen 12 people killed this month as the country’s prime minister is set to hold crisis meetings with the head of the armed forces today. 

Prime minister Ulf Kristersson has vowed to defeat criminal gangs and will meet military chief Micael Byden and national chief of police Anders Thornberg today to ‘see how the armed forces can help the police fight gangs’.

It comes after a bloody 12 hours saw an 18-year-old rapper executed on a sports field, a second man shot dead and a 25-year-old woman killed in a devastating bomb blast in Stockholm. 

And this month has been the deadliest so far for shootings, with 12 people killed. This includes a 13-year-old boy who was found dead in the woods in Stockholm’s suburbs after being shot in the head in yet another example of ‘gross and completely reckless gang violence’, prosecutors said.

The Scandinavian country has in recent years been in the grip of a bloody conflict between gangs fighting over arms and drug trafficking, which has escalated over vendettas between the gangs.

Apartment buildings and homes across the country are frequently rocked by explosions, while shootings, once limited to disadvantaged areas, have become regular occurrences in public places in the usually tranquil, wealthy country.

Milo, a 13-year-old boy, (pictured) was found dead in the woods in Stockholm’s suburbs after he was shot in the head in yet another example of ‘gross and completely reckless gang violence’, prosecutors said.

Early on Thursday morning, a 25-year-old woman died in an explosion that ripped through her home and four neighbouring buildings in Storvreta outside Uppsala, north of Stockholm

Police officers investigate the scene where a young man was shot at a sports ground in southern Stockholm on Wednesday night 

The streets of the Swedish capital have descended into carnage amid a spate of lawlessness, with the three murders being committed within 12 hours of each other

‘We are going to hunt down the gangs. We are going to defeat the gangs,’ Kristersson said in a televised address to the nation Thursday evening, after three people were killed overnight on Wednesday.

It’s not yet clear how the military might get involved in the fight against gang violence but previous meetings suggest soldiers could take over some policing shootings in order to free up specialist officers to fight crime.

Late on Wednesday, an 18-year-old rapper was shot dead at the Mälarhöjden sports ground in Fruängen in southern Stockholm in a brazen attack during a football training session.

Within hours, one man was killed and another was wounded in a shooting in Jordbro, south of the Swedish capital. Minutes after police were called to reports of gunfire, a pickup truck crashed into a house in the area before two men ran from the vehicle.

And early on Thursday morning, a 25-year-old woman died in an explosion that ripped through her home and four neighbouring buildings in Storvreta outside Uppsala, north of Stockholm. 

Footage of the bomb’s aftermath shows the woman’s building ripped apart, the smashed windows hanging down the front of her home in a scene that witnesses have likened to a war zone. 

Police believe the woman, a Masters student who was studying to become a teacher, was not the target of the bomb. The real target was a relative of gangster Rawa Majid, known as the ‘Purple Fox’, who was living next door to the victim but appears to have been away at the time, reports Aftonbladet. 

‘There were panicked screams and the smell of smoke,’ a neighbour of the young woman told Expressen. ‘It was as if we are in a war zone.’ 

Meanwhile, two people were killed and two others injured last Friday when a gunman opened fire in a crowded bar in Sandviken, northwest of Stockholm.

And earlier this month, a 13-year-old boy, identified only as Milo, was found dead in woods near his home in the suburbs of Stockholm earlier this month.

Milo had been shot in the head in a chilling example of ‘gross and completely reckless gang violence,’ prosecutor Lisa dos Santos said at the time. He is believed to have been shot in Haninge, south of Stockholm. 

‘An increasing number of children and completely innocent people are affected by this extreme violence,’ Kristersson said.

‘Sweden has never seen anything like this. No other country in Europe is seeing anything like this.’

Police investigate after an explosion occurred early Thursday morning in a housing area in Storvreta outside Uppsala, Sweden, on Thursday 

Footage of the bomb’s aftermath shows the woman’s building ripped apart, the smashed windows hanging down the front of her home in a scene that witnesses have likened to a war zone

Footage of the bomb’s aftermath shows the woman’s building ripped apart, the smashed windows hanging down the front of her home in a scene that witnesses have likened to a war zone

One man was killed and another was wounded in a shooting in Jordbro, south of the Swedish capital

Criminal gangs have become a growing problem in Sweden, with an increasing number of drive-by shootings, bombings and grenade attacks. Most of the violence is in Sweden’s three largest cities: Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo.

The violence is being fuelled by a feud between Rawa Majid who lives in Turkey and  his former lieutenant Ismail Abdo, known as ‘The Strawberry’, whose mother, a woman in her 60s, was shot on September 7 and later died of her wounds.

According to a tally by Swedish public television SVT, 12 people have been killed in shootings and explosions in September, the deadliest month in the past four years. The surge in killings has shocked Swedes.

‘Crime has reached unprecedented levels. The situation is very serious in Uppsala, and in the rest of the country,’ Uppsala police official Catarina Bowall told reporters.

Kristersson said serious organised crime had risen over the past decade ‘due to naivete’.

‘An irresponsible immigration policy and failed integration led us here,’ the conservative leader said.

‘Swedish legislation was not designed for gang wars and child soldiers. But we’re changing that now,’ he said.

Late on Wednesday, an 18-year-old rapper was shot dead at the Mälarhöjden sports ground in Fruängen in southern Stockholm in a brazen attack during a football training session (police at the scene) 

One man was killed and another was wounded in a shooting in Jordbro, south of the Swedish capital: Pictured officers at the scene on Thursday morning

Police stand on the scene after a man was shot dead and another person was injured in Jordbro in the early hours of Thursday 

He noted new legislation entering into force in the coming days enabling police to wiretap gangs, as well as plans for body searches in some areas, harsher sentences for repeat offenders and double sentences for certain crimes.

‘We’ll put them on trial. If they are Swedish citizens they will be locked away with long prison sentences, and if they are foreigners they will be deported,’ he said.

‘We are going to deport foreigners who move in criminal gang circles even if they haven’t committed a crime.’

He said Sweden also needed to introduce surveillance cameras in public places and build special prisons for teenage criminals.

In 2022, Sweden registered 391 shootings, 62 of which were fatal.