Eyes are turning to Iran, whose leader has called for the Quran burner to receive the “severest punishment.”
The shooting this week of 38-year-old Iraqi Christian refugee Salwan Momika might be linked to a foreign power, Stockholm officials have claimed.
Muslim demonstrations erupted across Europe and beyond in recent years as a result of the anti-Islam campaigner’s burning of the Quran. He was shot dead in Södertalje on Wednesday while livestreaming on social media.
This post is headed by a mugshot of Axel Rudakubana, the young man who stabbed three little girls to death, and injured many more, in Southport last year at a summer holiday Taylor Swift-themed dance club.
It is an extraordinary portrait. Rudakubana’s eyes somehow manage to convey sorrow, hatred, wickedness and fear all at the same time – with a viscerality that is almost physical. There are some people (there are two or three I can think of who I have encountered in my own lifetime) whose malice seems to emanate from them in a cold miasma – whose very presence in a room refrigerates it. That is the sensation that one gets when looking at this photograph. But at the same time one can see suffering and pain in the face it depicts, too; it does not excuse Rudakubana’s actions for one second to observe that his own evil has traumatised him. He is said to have told police in the aftermath of his stabbing spree that he was happy he had done it and that the girls were dead, but he doesn’t look at all happy; in fact he looks as though he is already in a personal hell.
Sweden is considering transferring convicted criminals to foreign prisons as a response to its escalating crime crisis. A government-commissioned investigation, launched in December 2023, concluded that there are no legal barriers preventing Sweden from leasing prison spaces abroad. Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer announced the findings on Wednesday, emphasising that negotiations with potential host countries are already underway.
The proposal follows a surge in violent crime, particularly linked to gang activity, which has pushed Sweden’s prisons to capacity. The number of prison sentences issued in 2023 increased by 25% compared to the previous year, with a total of nearly 200,000 months of incarceration. By 2033, Swedish authorities estimate they will need 27,000 prison beds—more than double the current 11,000.
A man was executed for blasphemy in Europe yesterday. In the heart of the EU, which boasts to the world about its culture of tolerance, a man was shot in cold blood seemingly for the ‘crime’ of deriding the Koran. Anyone who doubts that Europe is in a dark place right now will surely have a rude awakening following this grim slaying of a man who some judged to be insufficiently godly.
The latest suspected senior Iranian official caught in Canada sued the immigration department and enlisted a Liberal MP’s office as part of her fight to stay in the country, government records show.
After arriving in Canada as a tourist, Elham Zandi applied for a work permit, and when officials investigated her past, she complained to the courts about the delay and sought $10,000 in damages.
A man who sparked violent protests after burning the Quran has been shot dead in Sweden, according to local media reports.
Salwan Momika, 38, is reported to have been killed in an apartment in Södertälje, Stockholm, on Wednesday evening.
Unrest broke out after Mr Momika set fire to a copy of Islam’s holy book outside Stockholm Central Mosque in 2023.
Stockholm police said in a statement that five people had been arrested after a man in his 40s was shot dead overnight.
The Swedish government is not in control.
This is the textbook definition of a failed state. Sweden, a brand new member of NATO has imploded and may need outside intervention to figure herself out. Europe take heed.https://t.co/J3qzLs4eaN https://t.co/W7uvS6Z3rh
— Ayaan Hirsi Ali (@Ayaan) January 30, 2025
In several unsettling attacks across Europe, lone assailants have singled out children in especially shocking acts of violence. Consider last week’s knife assault in Bavaria or the horrifying mass stabbing in Southport for which the killer has just been sentenced. Each time, authorities rush to dismiss terrorism or cite “psychological problems.” But far from having nothing to do with terrorism, these attacks suggest the emergence of a new kind of nihilistic terror, one which, although different from the ideological jihadism we might be used to, draws on a similar script. These killers express the hatred and contempt they have towards contemporary Western societies in acts of barbarism specifically targeted at children. Their choice of children is not incidental.
A trail of blood runs through Europe’s cities, as more and more places, even the most idyllic and sleepy, turn into crime scenes. A trail of migrants runs through the list of perpetrators.
The review ordered by Yvette Cooper — and since rejected by ministers — recommended changes to counterextremism policy to tackle a greater range of threats
Claims of two-tier policing are an extreme right-wing narrative, according to an internal Home Office review that recommended sweeping changes to the UK’s approach to combating extremism.
The Home Office document also cites how right-wing extremists “frequently exploit” the grooming gangs scandal — described as “alleged group-based sexual abuse” — to promote anti-Muslim sentiment.
It recommended that the UK’s approach to tackling extremism should no longer be based on specific ideologies such as Islamism or the far right but “on behaviours and activity of concern”. This is because of the “dizzying range of beliefs and ideologies we see”, it added.
Imagine that, a Labour gov’t report suggesting the far right was exploiting the rape of thousands of children by Muslims.
An atrocity that was deliberately hushed up by Labour politicians.
A climate activist who accrued numerous arrests while on a study permit has left Canada, en route to his home country of Pakistan.
Zain Haq had appealed to the federal government to halt his deportation — again — however Immigration Minister Marc Miller did not heed his calls a second time.
A prominent Sikh group has called on the home secretary to extend her grooming gangs inquiry claiming that non-Muslim girls have been considered “fair game” by some perpetrators.
The Network of Sikh Organisations UK (NSO) has written to Yvette Cooper urging her to allow the review to examine race and religion as “contributing factors in these terrible crimes”.
Axel Rudakubana was referred to an anti-extremism programme three times but his obsession with mass shootings was dismissed as an ‘interest in world news’
Counterterrorism officers believed Axel Rudakubana had an interest in world news and current affairs but no cause or political belief and was “not in danger of being radicalised”, a Home Office review has found.
A redacted version of the report into decisions made by the northwest of England’s Prevent team in the Southport killer’s case is due to be released. It exposes serious failings in the officers’ approach to the violent extremist.
On Thursday Rudakubana, 18, was sentenced to a minimum of 52 years for the murders of three girls in a knife attack described in court as “shocking” and “pure evil”. The Sunday Times understands that Rudakubana was given a three-year discount to his sentence for pleading guilty. The families and politicians have expressed anger that he fell short of a full-life tariff due to him being 17 at the time of the murders.
Somali-born Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar decided to lecture Americans on Wednesday about what it means to be “American,” calling an immigration law signed by President John Adams “un-American.” But her comments only prove why some foreigners should never hold office in the United States.
President Donald Trump said during his inaugural address that he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to protect Americans from “foreign gangs and criminal networks.” The act allows the president to deport foreigners of an enemy nation. But Omar condemned the act as “un-American.” Yes, a Somali immigrant is telling Americans that one of America’s founders, John Adams, was acting in a way that was “un-American.”
This is sound advice.
An important rule for building walls is to know when you are walling someone out and when you are walling yourself in. Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany’s conservative CDU and likely next chancellor, is about to find this out the hard way. After two people — including a two-year-old child — were killed in a stabbing incident in the Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg and three more seriously injured, the German public is understandably angry.
President Trump’s long-promised ICE raids continued on Thursday — as the total number of illegal migrants nabbed by federal authorities reached 538, including new arrests of pedophiles, gang members, and a suspected terrorist in New York.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are scouring cities and states, trying to round up illegal aliens who are either wanted for crimes in their home country or who have committed crimes during their time in the US.
A source told The Post that many of the migrants rounded up by agents were convicted in “some very heinous cases.”
