'Crime wave' hits Swedish city

English language Swedish news site The Local describes a 'crime wave' that hit the city of Malmö this morning. Generally, a crime wave is regarded as a spate of muggings, assaults, robberies and the like. The crime wave that hit Malmö was, er, a bit different.

Police in Malmö have created a special unit to investigate a wave of crimes in the city on Thursday morning that included the discovery of a car bomb, a bank robbery, a burning car and a suspicious bag.

"We got a tip-off that a number of explosive devices were to be detonated in Malmö and at the same time we were also alerted to the bank robbery, which was soon followed by a new alert and an explosive device outside the police station," said police spokeswoman Ewa-Gun Westford.

"We think the car explosion was a diversionary maneuvre for the bank robbery. That's our hypothesis but we are also open to other possibilities," she added.

A city centre pre-school was evacuated early in morning after a car bomb exploded outside the premises.

The car belonged to a parent who had just dropped a child off at the daycare centre on Carl Gustafs Väg, Skånska Dagbladet reports.

Police later confirmed that an explosive device had been placed under the rear section of the vehicle.

Sounds to me more like a coordinated terror attack, although the diversionary tactic theory makes some sense.

One of the annoying things about Scandinavian news sources is that they rarely, if ever, describe suspects, and surely there were witnesses to the bank robbery. But Malmö has a huge Muslim immigrant population, and there are parts of the city that are "no-go" areas for emergency services due to attacks by the good citizens there.