Inside Russia's secret Libyan airbase
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Learn more at paloaltonetworks.com slash cortex. Oh my God, it's the coolest thing ever. Hey guys, have you heard of Gold Belly? Well, check this out. It's this amazing site where they ship the most iconic, famous foods from restaurants across the country, anywhere nationwide. I've never found a more perfect gift than food. They ship Chicago deep dish pizza, New York bagels.

Maine lobster rolls and even Ina Garten's famous cakes. Seriously. So if you're looking for a gift for the food lover in your life, head to goldbelly.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code GIFT. What basically happens is that Fernando's accomplice takes up a Kalashnikov rifle, cocks the rifle, then fires about 15 times through the door of this woman's apartment. And then the two of them rush back down the stairwell and disappear.

They said he will start a war. I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars. I recognize the challenges from Ukraine to Gaza to Sudan and beyond. War, hunger, terrorism. I just find bombs and I find dead people. But it's a really scary thing. I'm Roland Oliphant. This is Battle Lines. It's Friday, December the 6th, 2024.

On today's episode, we return to Libya, where Russian mercenaries have been rapidly expanding desert air bases. Could the North African state become Russia's next foothold on the Mediterranean? Plus, Sweden's Prime Minister has threatened to call out the army to tackle gang wars in which teenagers are being used as child soldiers. But first, I caught up with senior foreign correspondent Sofia Jan.

Since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya has been in varying states of chaos. It has endured civil war, it has endured Islamist insurgency, it is currently effectively divided between an internationally recognised government in the capital Tripoli,

and the government of Khalifa Haftar, the warlord who controls much of the east and south of the country. Throughout this period, outside powers have been interested in trying to gain a foothold in the country. Russia has long had a relationship with Khalifa Haftar, but it seems recently to have begun intensifying. I'm joined now by Safiya Yan, senior foreign correspondent based in Istanbul. Safiya,

You have been looking at some recent developments in Libya. What have you found? This relationship that Russia has with General Hafchar is one that has been really beneficial to Putin to what Russia is interested in doing in Libya and across Africa. And what we found by looking at satellite images from just this year, we examined the

images at four Libyan air bases that are known to be under Russian control. And when you look at the map, you see that they essentially fall in a pretty strategic line from the northeast coast down into central Libya. Now, three of these showed very significant changes, again, all from just this year. We're talking about upgraded runways, bolstered perimeter defenses, entirely new buildings.

And that suggests that Russia is significantly ramping up its military presence in Libya. Libya serves as the core for Russia's fast-expanding operations in Africa. I mean, this is a way in for Russia to have greater access to countries like Sudan, Mali, Chad, the Central African Republic. Some of these countries, Russia is already what a lot of experts describe as an arc of power, from the eastern Mediterranean, where Russia already controls positions in Syria, down to the southern Mediterranean via Libya. And when you think about this

from the high level perspective. I mean, think about a map. Think about where the Mediterranean Sea is. Russia and Syria, Russia and Libya. On the other side of that, we're talking Italy, Greece, Spain. We're talking about Europe. And so you can see how this whole picture could be a challenge going forward. Just to set the scene, Sophia, of course, what are the Russians getting into here? There is an international...

government in Tripoli, but then the Russians are dealing with this guy, Khalifa Haftar, who controls most of the rest of the country. Who is General Haftar? What's his story? What does he want? General Haftar is someone who's described as having an insatiable appetite to have more and more power. He's thought to have received military training in the former Soviet Union, and he came to power in the aftermath after Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi died. And so he's risen quite quickly.

He has somehow amassed militias. He's made this partnership with Russia. It was sort of what some experts describe as a marriage of convenience. He needed some sort of international backing when he was trying to rise to power. The Russians were there. Russians wanted to get into Libya. They wanted to get into Africa. They gave Haftar this opportunity. Now, Haftar is useful for the Russians.

because he can kind of grease the wheels, so to speak, sometimes literally because he's given Russia access and control over strategic oil fields. For Russia, we're talking about very key strategic natural resources. Again, we're talking about a strategic spot. And it also means that this gives Russia another side to play, another card to play. After Russia invaded Ukraine,

They have been ostracized by a lot of the West, by Europe, by the U.S., by the U.K. But if they've got Africa, then they can say, hey, you know, not everybody thinks we're the bad guys. Look at these guys. They're our friends. So it's a way for Russia to hedge their bets in many, many ways. Now, having access to Libya is so important that Moscow has not completely shut out the other side, the U.N.-recognized government. There is a prime minister there.

Russia has tried to make some overtures to have some sort of links there. And what this suggests is that Libya is so important that they want to make sure whatever happens, either to Haftar side, either to the UN recognized government side, that they've still got their access in Libya.

The investigation you published is called Pictured, How Russia is Expanding Its Military Foothold in Africa. And you talk about the specifics about renovated runways and so on. Could you just tell us about how you went about investigating this story? How did you get this information and go about checking it? So anecdotally, I had heard from different experts.

to look at Russia, they look at Africa, they were talking about an increased Russian presence. There was a lot of

anecdotal comments I was getting from people about what they were doing and how they were significantly ramping up what their activities were, their operational capabilities. And I kept thinking, well, what is it that we can use to show that? I mean, is there anything that we can show that? Obviously, getting access into Libya is complicated. And even if I could go, it's not very likely that I could get close enough, for instance, to a military base to be able to see something so key. I mean, this is, we're talking kind of

You're impossible here. But there are great satellite images now. Technology allows us to do quite a bit. And so using what is already publicly known in terms of Russian presence in Libya, from there, then we were able to map out on a hunch where Russia could be, where they could be expanding. And then based on that and some information I got from sources with access to people on the ground, based on what we...

heard was potentially happening from there. We could pull satellite images with the help of Maxar, they're a satellite company. And then to find

when there were things happening, when we could actually show that there were changes that the Russians were part of. And so we found things like Russian military planes landing outside of these bases. Now these planes are very well known to transport all sorts of things: weapons, ammunition, military trucks, vehicles, personnel. All of this jives too with what we have seen publicly in the news. For instance, one of Russia's deputy defense ministers

has made a number of visits to Libya over the last year or so. This is Yunus Bekki of Kurov, I think you're talking about. Yes. So since August 2023, he's made six visits to Libya. Now, August 2023, you'll recall, you know this very well, Roland, that's when Prigozhin died. Prigozhin, who was the former leader of Wagner, which was then reorganized as Afrika Korps. And Afrika Korps is now very much involved with what Russia's doing in Libya. Yeah.

So on a timeline here, when you started hearing from experts that there's a lot more Russian activity in Libya, what kind of timeline are we talking about that we mark this interesting development? Is it since the death of Prokofiev and since the reorganization of Wagner's interests?

Yeah, Russia was moving personnel and resources actually out of Africa for some time to support its invasion in Ukraine. But then after the death of Prokhorin, there seemed to have been somewhat of a pivot back to thinking more long-term. Africa is part of the long-term game. This is not the short-term, today what we need kind of question. This is the tomorrow what we need question. And so from the start of this calendar year, that's when there were some changes on the ground. For instance, upgrade the runway at one airbase, Brock.

This is right in central Libya. And within a couple of months, by April, there were Russian military planes landing at that airbase. And we're talking about an airstrip at a military base that had not been used for many, many, many years. And so this is all because of Russian involvement. And again, once Russia is able to bring in equipment,

whether that's weapons or ammunition or armored vehicles, it could stay in Libya or it could move elsewhere into Africa. Now, how much is staying in Libya and how much is going elsewhere? This is very hard to determine. Experts are trying to figure this out too. But all this to say that Russian involvement here means it could get a lot messier going forward in Africa. And I do encourage listeners to go and look at that article on the website. Some lovely satellite images. You can literally see

the fresh new black tarmac on the renovated runway. And it stands out quite clearly alongside the kind of the tighter old bits of runway they haven't renovated. It's really worth a look. How does this link with the other things going on in the Eastern Mediterranean? I'm really thinking about Syria, which we've covered on the podcast.

The civil war in Syria essentially restarted with this very surprising rebel offensive, essentially. The Russians have obviously been bombing the rebels in support of their ally Bashar al-Assad.

last time they were able to help him win. But we soon got these reports of possibly the Russians withdrawing ships from their base in Tartus, which is their original foothold on the Mediterranean. Some speculation that perhaps Libya could serve as their backup should Syria fall. Do you have anything to say about that? Is there any link to that or is it too early to say anything concrete on that score?

When it comes to Syria, I think it's too early to say for sure what will happen. Nobody's really got that crystal ball that's perfect. But Russia does support Assad. Russia, from a strategic position, looking at this and thinking about this, it's not to their advantage to let Assad fall. It would make them look weak. But of course, Russia has a lot of other priorities right now. Again, Libya, Africa is about the long-term strategy. And

There's also this thinking, too, I would imagine from the Russian side, what if something did happen to Syria? What if Russia couldn't support Syria to the point where Assad could claim victory? Well, what does that send? What kind of message does that send to Haftar? You know, these are really big questions. I'm not in the minds of...

The guys in charge at the top of the Russian military, I'm not going to profess to say that we can say exactly what they're thinking. But when you consider this from a geopolitical strategic perspective, I mean, these are all very valid questions that have got to be running through their minds, right? Because they're thinking about how to shore up their positions today and also tomorrow. So could Syria totally collapse? This is a question that we'll see answered in the coming days. But for Russia's involvement, yes.

presumably they're going to do what they can even if it's not to not to the fullest extent but do what they can to support assad i mean i'd be curious to know what you think roland you know russia certainly far better than i do assad is obviously an important ally to russia you're absolutely right that part of their their usp if you like um is saying we stand by our allies we're not like the west and and therefore standing with us sad and it's kind of an advertisement for other people who they want to work with and people like khalifa haftar but also people across africa other people across the middle east

You know, it is their original foothold on the Mediterranean. It's a foothold that historically has roots in the Cold War, you know, and the Soviet relationship with Assad's father. So there's all kinds of reasons they would want to stay in.

If there is a collapse, if Damascus was to fall, if Assad ends up fleeing to exile in Moscow or perhaps strung up from a lamppost if the rebels get their hands on him, yes, that would be bad news. Yes, they might have to evacuate. But on the other hand, we have seen the rebels actually evacuate.

making statements directed at the Russians, saying to the Russians, we've got no quarrel with you. This is between us and the regime. Kind of trying to split Assad and the Russians in a way by making the case that perhaps the Russians don't have to worry. Perhaps the Russians could retain their base in Tartus. The rebels haven't explicitly said that, but they're certainly leaving that door open because the leadership of this rebel group, the

They're quite canny. They're much more canny than some of their predecessors. That's why they've kind of suppressed the more bloodthirsty jihadist elements within their alliance because they don't want to alienate the West. They also don't want to alienate the Russians. They want to be able to isolate their enemy Assad and deal with him. So lots and lots and lots of elements in play there.

Sophia, you've told us something about what Russia is doing in Libya. How about its geopolitical competitors? Have we seen any response from other powers to this increase in Russian activity? Somebody did send me a screenshot from a flight tracking site that seems to show US naval drones flying up and down that part of the Mediterranean, taking a good look not only at

Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, but also off the Libyan coast. What does that mean? It does seem like the U.S. was running some patrols, but not necessarily focused specifically on Libya. It did look like a movement around the Middle East,

Syria, Lebanon, Israel, going down to Libya. So looking more at the broader Eastern Mediterranean. Now, one potential reason there might have been such patrolling comes to me from an expert I spoke with, Jalal Harchawi of RUSI, a UK-based defense and security think tank. And he noted that actually there was a delegation from U.S. Africa Command. This is under the Defense Department. And they went to Benghazi.

where they met with Saddam Haftar. Now, AfricaCom, they are headquartered out of Germany, but look after exactly what the name would suggest. And so the presence of a delegation there from the U.S. in Libya could explain why there were patrols that included coverage of this area in Benghazi, over Benghazi. Now, the timing of this is really interesting to note because Haftar has allied himself with Russia. Right now, Assad, who also...

put himself in line with Russia. In Syria, they don't look to be in the strongest of positions, both Assad and Russia. And so from the U.S. side, what Jalal was noting to me is that it's pretty opportunistic for the Americans to just give Haftar a nudge and say, hey, look over there, look what's happening in Syria. Look at how Russia's responding. Look at what this means for Assad. Doesn't look great for them, does it?

do you want that to be used someday? You know, there's likely some form of that conversation going on. And that's what Jalal was noting to me. And I think that's a really important point to highlight, because again, for the US, this is a point in time by which if there was any doubt in Haftar's mind, this is the moment to keep pushing that, to exploit that in his thinking. Sophia Yan, thank you very much.

After the break, why are Sweden's drug gangs hiring children to commit murders? And can the country's army put an end to it?

Security teams face a barrage of more. More security tools create more complexity. More devices need protection. More specialized focus areas create more silos. The security landscape is changing fast. How can security operations transform to meet the current threats? Cortex by Palo Alto Networks consolidates SecOps tools into an integrated platform and helps organizations stop threats at scale with AI, automation, and analytics.

Learn more at paloaltonetworks.com slash cortex. Oh my God, it's the coolest thing ever. Hey guys, have you heard of Goldbelly? Well, check this out. It's this amazing site where they ship the most iconic, famous foods from restaurants across the country anywhere nationwide. I've never found a more perfect gift than food. They ship Chicago deep dish pizza, New York bagels, Maine lobster rolls, and even Ina Garten's famous cakes. Seriously.

So if you're looking for a gift for the food lover in your life, head to goldbelly.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code GIFT. Sweden used to be one of the safest countries in the world, but it is rapidly falling down the rankings. According to a count by the Swedish public broadcaster, 11 people were killed in shootings and explosions in September this year, making it the deadliest month in the country for the past four years.

Ulf Christensen, the Prime Minister, has threatened to call out the army. Sweden, he says, has never seen anything like it. And no other European country is seeing anything like it either. So what is going on? James Rothwell...

recently returned from Sweden looking at this story. James, can you just set the scene for us? We obviously, I think, think of Sweden as a very comfortable, civilised place, and I suppose on the whole it still is. But what is going on here? The Prime Minister is talking, I think, primarily about gang violence. Yes, that's correct, Roland. Sweden certainly is a delightful country, but it has got a very serious issue with racism

rising gang violence and in particular a very disturbing new trend in which children, sometimes as young as 11, are being recruited on social media by gangs to carry out contract killings. And the wider context of this is that there's been a sort of large-scale gang war happening in Sweden over the past few years. It's essentially a sort of turf war between

and the very cynical gangs, the gangs who sometimes are not even based in Sweden anymore, having fled the country to escape prosecution, are in effect preying on children to carry out these killings because they are under the age of 15. And in Sweden, if you are aged below 15, due to a sort of quirk of Swedish law, you cannot be prosecuted. So what we're seeing is a sort of exploitation of a loophole

if you like, in Swedish law, which allows the gangs to send children out to do the killings on behalf of the gang in return for, we are told, very large cash payments. How many of these killings...

carried out by kids then? Is it all of them or 90% of them or is it just a few? Well, I can tell you that according to Sweden's prosecution authority, there has been a major increase in murder-related cases which involve child suspects.

So, for example, in the first eight months of 2023, there were 31 cases of child involved murder cases and that rose to 102 in the same period of this year. So we are talking about a very significant increase. The extent to which they account for child.

Gang-related shootings in general is perhaps less clear. Not all of these crimes are reported, in part due to the sort of culture of own murder surrounding these gangs. But nevertheless, we're talking about a large increase in killings which involve child suspects. There's a lot to unpack here, including kind of, you know, who are the children doing this? Who are they killing? And so on. But let's start with the

I suppose with the cause or the context of all of this,

What do we know about these gangs? I read your dispatch. You mentioned two in particular who seem to be engaged in this conflict. Where do they come from? Who are they? And what is their business? What are they fighting over? Yeah, that's right, Roland. So just to set the scene a little bit, there has been since December 2022 a major turf war, which is largely being fought between two of the biggest gangs in Sweden. One is called Foxtrot, and that's the narcotics.

gang network, although I understand it's also expanding its activities into other areas of crime as well, including apparently financial crime, and a rival faction called Dalen, which I believe is named after the Dalen Valley. Foxtrot is led by Rawar Majid. He's the leader of Foxtrot and goes by the alias Kurdish Fox, and

He is not based in Sweden. We are told that he is in hiding, possibly in Turkey or perhaps even in Iran. And as for that gang, Darlen, they are led by Michael Tenesos, and he goes under the alias The Greek. We're not sure at all where this gang leader is based. Abroad, apparently. Although, interestingly, one of his associates was arrested in northern Greece earlier this year, so it may be that that is where...

the gang is based and these gangs are fighting over drug territory to put it in the most simple terms but part of that war involves basically tit for tat violence so if one gang member from one side is killed the other side will retaliate by by killing a gang member from that side the so

sort of ugly and unpleasant twist in what is already a pretty dark story is that some of these gangs will go after your girlfriend or your family or even your ex-girlfriend if they can't get to you directly and that seems to be happening more and more with the exodus of some of the more senior members of this gang overseas. And can you tell us a little bit about the geography here? Are they

Are these gangs based in particular parts of Sweden? Is this a Stockholm problem, a Malmo problem or something else? Or is it nationwide?

It's a Stockholm problem, it's a Malmö problem, it's a Karlstad problem. Pretty much every large urban population area in Sweden is struggling with gangs at the moment. The gangs are almost overwhelmingly based in suburbs of these cities. So, for example, the northwestern suburbs of Stockholm, places like Rinkeby, you've got a large concentration of gang activity in those places.

We're obviously talking about overpopulated, impoverished suburbs, which in some places, the population, as much as 90 percent of the population, will come from a first or second generation migration background. And an important but complex part of this story that therefore needs to be unpacked is obviously the population.

connection between mass migration into Sweden, not just in 2015 during the refugee crisis, but also before and the current wave of crime. It's worth emphasising from the get go, you know, that the overwhelming majority of migrants and refugees in Sweden, according to the police, you know, live

sort of stable, lawful lives. But we are talking about a very violent minority within that group of people, which is causing such immense pain, criminality and distress in the rest of Sweden. Quite right. You do see in the wider, broader kind of

I suppose political or cultural wars, Scandinavia is seized on isn't it by one side or another. Often people would point to violence or migration problems in Scandinavia and say look your left-wing utopia is nothing of the sort and so on. So I think we do have to be careful about being clear that we are reporting this in its own terms. We're looking at the facts here not as some kind of you know rhetorical tool.

On that note, I really want to get into who these kids are and where they come from. But I think there is a natural question to ask, which is you've kind of introduced it. Is it fair to say these gangs are based in migrant communities? If so, is there an ethnic component to these gangs? Is one gang Kurdish and one gang Greek or something else? And more broadly, why are those communities perhaps so vulnerable or children in those communities so vulnerable to recruitment?

Yeah, so not all of the gangs come from a foreign background, but the gangs involved in this particular turf war, as the names of the leaders suggest, come from a Turkish, Kurdish or Greek background. And it's a situation where the victims of the crimes, the gang members who are being targeted, will also come from that background, as will the perpetrators, the members of the other gangs.

Sweden also had a real problem with neo-Nazi gangs back in the day. And an interesting, or I should say interesting but disturbing trend in Sweden at the moment is the organisations that used to focus their efforts on de-radicalising neo-Nazi gangs have now shifted almost completely over to focusing on this aspect of gang culture instead. So we are talking about a significant shift in the sort of makeup of

these gangs. On your question about how they operate, they groom basically children who come from an impoverished background, children who have mental disabilities, who may not fully understand the consequences of what they're being asked to do.

We were told that they also prey on children who feel deeply alienated by wider Swedish society. They've grown up perhaps as the child of a first generation refugee who doesn't feel connected to Swedish society. Perhaps their parent has never learned Swedish.

Perhaps their parent comes home every day working, you know, 12, 14 hour shifts on some low paid job. And the child will look at that and see that the parent is working incredibly long hours for very little money. And then you introduce into that noxious mix.

a gang member who says, hey, we will give you £10,000 to kill somebody and you'll get away with it because you're under the criminal age of responsibility in Sweden. You can't be prosecuted. That is the kind of picture that emerges when you ask police and prosecutors about how these crimes come to be committed by children. Your dispatch starts with incredibly...

kind of chilling conversation I believe it's a text message conversation between a teenager and a recruiter or somebody looking for someone to do the job which ends up with a shooting with a Kalashnikov could you just talk us through that and how typical that is that the kind of well I suppose what struck me was the the casualness of it all but could you just talk us through that that particular killing or attempted killing

That's right. So we've seen a transcript, a chat log between a Swedish child hitman who went by the alias of Fernando and his handler from the Foxtrot gang who went under the alias Louise Gucci.

Louise Gucci is a sort of contraction of two fashion labels put together. And the full alias of this Fernando character is Fernando Sucre, who I'm told is a character from the TV drama Prison Break.

So we're talking about gang members or hit men for gangs who use slightly exotic aliases, which are based on tough guy crime drama characters or luxury brands. In the chat log, what basically happens is that Fernando, not his real name, I should stress, but Fernando is at his youth club somewhere in, I think, Stockholm, playing the FIFA football game at his youth club. And...

Gucci, his handler, gets in touch with him and basically says, OK, we've got a contract for you. This is what we want you to do. And then over text, he says, you're going to collect some pistols. There's a discussion about whether to take a Kalashnikov rifle as well. And then you're going to go to this address and.

and the name of the target is given. And the target isn't even a gang member. It's the ex-girlfriend of a gang member that the Foxtrot gang wanted to get to as part of that ongoing turf war. And Fernando very casually responds to this contract. He says, yeah, I understand, brother. And then he collects an accomplice and goes off to this target, which is an apartment block somewhere in a suburb of Stockholm.

We know the rest of the story from there because we have also seen video footage of this contract killing. Now, I should stress this was a...

as it were, failed hit. What basically happens, and you can see this in the video, we've published part of the video on the website, is that Fernando's accomplice takes up a Kalashnikov rifle, cocks the rifle, then fires about 15 times through the door of this woman's apartment, and then the two of them rush back down the stairwell and disappear. They didn't hit anyone on the other side of that door, but it is very clear what the intention of that act was.

After that, obviously, Swedish authorities investigated and that started a sort of very, very long legal procedure of trying to bring free people involved in that crime to justice. Fernando, the young man whose text messages we've seen, his accomplice, whose name I don't know, who actually fired the rifle, and Luis Gucci, the gang handler who was offering the contract.

And that case is, as I understand it, pretty typical of the sorts of crimes that are being committed. There was another case vastly more gruesome, which perhaps we can also touch on as well, which gives you, I'm afraid, a much more vivid picture of what happens when one of these gang hits is quote unquote successful. But yes, that is relatively typical of what's going on. Tell us about this other case.

This was a 16-year-old boy who fatally shot a father of two at his home in Vastberga. That, we presume, was some kind of gang-related contract killing because that's what he was convicted of doing. Although the details...

over the victim are a little bit sketchy. But he shot a father of two dead at his home and then he went upstairs and he turned the gun on the wife of this victim and one of the victim's children. This all came out in the courts later. The killer told the mother to turn around and then he shot her in the back.

The bullet passed through the body of the mother who was protecting the child, then it passed through a Winnie the Pooh toy that was being held by the child and the bullet then wounded the child too.

The mother, who was a doctor, immediately tried to save the life of her child and her own life, and she was successful. They both survived. But the father was murdered. And then the next day, the same teenager continued to another home where he gunned down a 60-year-old grandmother and a 20-year-old woman in Thulinger.

And we know that those two female victims had no involvement in gangs whatsoever. They just happened to be the relatives of a rival gang member, and that's why they'd been selected for assassination, basically. This young man was caught, and a Swedish court handed the boy a record jail sentence of 12 years. He was over the age of criminal responsibility in Sweden. That's why in this rare case he got convicted.

James, you paint this really grim picture of what's going on up there. The political rhetoric makes it sound like it's seen as a massive problem in the country. The prime minister, as I said in the introduction, has talked about calling out the army to deal with this. What exactly does that mean and what is the answer to this? Do the authorities in Sweden have an answer?

That's a really good question. It's quite a difficult one to answer. It's a question that I spent a significant portion of my time in Sweden trying to answer for the pieces as well. The first thing to say is that the Swedish government is introducing some reforms to try and tackle this issue. You allude to that statement about perhaps bringing in the army.

There's also announced reforms or implemented reforms on lengthening the sentences for these sorts of crimes. There's also some attempt at international cooperation with Turkish authorities on cracking down on the Foxtrot gang and also neighbouring Scandinavian countries, which are seeing some cross-border criminality here, where a gangster may...

be recruited from one country and then cross the border into the other one. There's also some discussions about improving anonymity and protection for court witnesses because a massive issue here is people are reluctant to testify for fear that they themselves will be targeted by the gang. And another reform that's being introduced is safe zones, which is where police...

will sound somewhat similar to stop and search in the UK, I think, a safe zone where police can search young people, even if there's no suspicion of a crime. It's a sort of random spot check for any evidence that they are on the way to commit a gang crime or wider evidence of their involvement.

Now, the people that I interviewed for this story, Swedish prosecutors, lawyers, policemen, teachers, social workers, community volunteers, and in one case, a former gang member, you know, they say that this is this is a problem that goes right to the heart of

Swedish society. They talk about much bigger problems. They talk about urban poverty. They talk about a failure to address the international nature of the gangs. They talk about a lack of integration in Swedish society, which is also linked to the migration issue that we discussed. And so critics of the Swedish government will say those measures, random searches, tougher sentences, are kind of a sticking plaster for this issue and that are more

ambitious, far-reaching reform is needed. I did also speak to some of these interviewees about the age of criminal responsibility. You know, one of the questions that I think I or my photographer colleague David Rose put to a social worker was, you know, why not just lower the age of criminal responsibility so that you bring these 13 and 40 year olds who are committing the crimes into that band of people who are exposed to prosecution?

And he said the concern was that if you lower the age of criminal responsibility, the gangs will just lower the age of the person committing the crime. If it's lowered to 13, they'll go after 12 year olds. If it's lowered to 12, they'll try and find 11 year olds to commit the crime. I'm not sure what the basement of that is.

procedure would be. I mean, there's a sort of disturbing question of how low would you go? How young would you go to find someone? You've kind of touched on it. I mean, the final kind of big point I wanted to leave on was this point that Ulf Christensen, the prime minister, made. He said, you know, Sweden has never seen anything like it and no other European country is seeing anything like it either. That there's

In other words, that there's something here, something about this which is peculiar to Sweden and that Sweden itself has to grapple with in a way. Yeah, I think that's broadly correct. I think that this is a story that tells you a great deal about what's happening in Sweden rather than some sort of Europe-wide trend. I do get the impression, having...

done a lot of interviews for this piece that something that's missing is the international cooperation. You know, the obvious question in terms of nailing the gang leaders who sort of

run this operation via middle men from their hideouts overseas is why haven't these guys been arrested and extradited and brought back to Sweden to face justice? You know, I did interview a Swedish police chief who said that some progress is being made on that issue, but it's an issue that obviously requires international solutions. It's not something that Sweden can do unilaterally. It needs to cooperate with the countries that are knowingly or otherwise

hiding these criminals to come back to the example of the Foxtrot leader who may be based in Iran potentially. Iran, of course, has a sort of wider geostrategic interest, arguably, in harboring these sorts of criminals because they are hugely destructive to the West.

And so that's another issue that's got to be looked at. So the violence itself is very localised in the sense that it is most severe in Sweden and it is a sort of national problem for Sweden. But there is a significant international element to the solution to this as well. James Rothwell, thank you very much indeed. And that's it for this episode of Battle Lines. We'll be back on Monday. I'm Roland Oliphant. Thanks for listening.

Battle Lines is an original podcast from The Telegraph, created by David Knowles. The producer is Yolaine Goffin. The executive producer is Louisa Wells. Stay on top of all our news, analysis and dispatches from the ground in Israel and Gaza. Subscribe to The Telegraph or sign up to Dispatches, which brings stories from our award-winning foreign correspondents straight to your inbox. We also have a live blog on our website where you can follow updates as they come in throughout the day, including insights from contributors to this podcast.

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