Buddy and his besty Asker!

When three explosions took place in one night across different parts of Stockholm last month, it came as a shock to residents. There had been blasts in other city suburbs, but never on their doorstep.

Swedish police are dealing with unprecedented levels of attacks, targeting city centre locations too. The bomb squad was called to deal with 97 explosions in the first nine months of this year.

"I grew up here and you feel like that environment gets violated," says Joel, 22.

The front door of his apartment block in the central Stockholm neighbourhood of Sodermalm was blown out and windows were shattered along the street.

Who is to blame?
This category of crime was not even logged prior to 2017. Then, in 2018, there were 162 explosions and in the past two months alone the bomb squad have been called to almost 30.

"Bangers, improvised explosives and hand grenades" are behind most of the blasts, says Linda H Straaf, head of intelligence at Sweden's National Operations Department.

This building attacked in the Sodermalm area of Stockholm is not far from a playground and a school
The attacks are usually carried out by criminal gangs to scare rival groups or their close friends or family, she says.