Ex-Swedish PM asks what Trump’s smoking

Donald Trump is now making up terror attacks. Source: Wikimedia

 

 

Donald Trump invented a terror attack in Sweden during a rally in Florida, suggesting he confused the country with a Pakistani city.

Trump spoke about migration in Europe, blaming it for terrorist attacks in Brussels, Nice and Paris but then said Sweden was attacked on Friday.

Trump told thousands in Florida: “We’ve got to keep our country safe. You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden.

“Sweden, who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible. You look at what’s happening in Brussels. You look at what’s happening all over the world. Take a look at Nice. Take a look at Paris.”

Contrary to Trump’s allegations, nearly all of the men involved in the attacks in Paris in November 2015, in Brussels in March last year and in Nice last July, were citizens of France or Belgium.

Could Trump have confused Sweden for Sehwan in Pakistan, where more than 85 people were killed in a suicide bombing on a Sufi shrine on Thursday?

Swedes were left confused.

Ex-Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt tweeted: “Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound.”

There was speculation that Trump might have been influenced by a Fox News interview with Ami Horowitz, a filmmaker who asserts that migrants in Sweden have been associated with a crime wave. “They often times try to cover up some of these crimes,” Horowitz said, adding that anyone trying to tell the truth about the situation are shouted down as racists and xenophobes.

Horowitz added: “Sweden had its first terrorist Islamic attack not that long ago, so they’re now getting a taste of what we’ve been seeing across Europe already.”

According to last year’s Swedish Crime Survey, crime rates had stayed relatively stable over the last decade. In 2015, there were 112 cases of lethal violence in Sweden, an increase of 25 cases compared with 2014, but assaults, threats, sexual offences, car theft, burglary and harassment all fell.

In 2010, a suicide bomber attacked central Stockholm, injuring two people. The bomber, Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, 28, was an Iraqi-born Swede who backed al-Qaeda.

Sweden processed 81,000 asylum seekers in 2014, 163,000 in 2015 and 29,000 in 2016, with another 25,000 to 45,000 expected during this year, the Swedish Migration Agency reported.