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Suspected hand grenade attack on police station in Malmo, Sweden Huge explosion ‘directly targeting police’ rocks police station in Malmo, Sweden
(about 1 hour later)
A loud explosion has been heard at the police station in the Swedish city of Malmo. The explosion was caused by a hand grenade, according to news reports. A huge TNT explosion has rocked a police station in a Swedish city of Malmo, damaging officers’ cars and the building. The attack, the second of its kind in less than a month, deliberately targeted police, authorities said.
"The place is locked off and the bomb group is on its way," police spokeswoman Anna Goransson was quoted as saying by Aftonbladet. The powerful blast that sent pressure gauges for several hundred meters around, took place in the Rosengard area on Wednesday evening. No one was injured in the incident, however, several cars belonging to police officers and the building’s façade were damaged.
The alleged attack happened shortly after 9pm local time in the courtyard of the police station. "Fortunately, no people have been injured, but cars, I cannot say how many, have been damaged," Goransson told reporters. Police say that the attack wasn’t a random incident and that it “directly targeted police.” Initial reports said that the explosion was caused by a hand grenade. Later preliminary investigation reportedly revealed that the substance was TNT. 
Authorities have yet to confirm what caused the explosion, but local media are reporting that a hand grenade was used. The detonation took place just as the two suspects approached the station, according to reports.
The authorities arrested two men in their 20s, police said in a statement, adding that the incident is "currently classified as common destruction." 
Police have been placed on high alert with armed officers deployed to strategic locations around Malmo.
As the investigation continues, local media and authorities have sketched possible connections with a recent spate of attacks on police stations in Sweden. On December 29, a police car was destroyed outside a police station in Malmo. In October, a powerful explosion outside the police station in Helsingborg also caused significant material damage. Following Wednesday night's attack, the Police Association tweeted that "attacks against police must end." Following the incident police arrested two men in their 20s on suspicion of “devastation endangering the public.” The suspects “are related to criminal activity in Malmo and are well-known to us,” Regional Police Chief Carina Persson told Sveriges Radio. 
Regional police chief Carina Persson called the attack "completely unacceptable," after visiting the scene of the explosion. "We must continue to work intensively in the fight against the serious crime," she said, vowing to punish the perpetrators. A local man told Aftonbladet that his children got scared when they heard the bang. “They became terrified. Such things only happen on television and in other countries,” he said.
Earlier, Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said deploying the military to clamp down on organized and violent crime remained an option, local media reported. “It felt like it vibrated inside me. It was really a huge bang,” another local witness told Adtonbadet newspaper on condition of anonymity.
While authorities in Malmo have yet to confirm any links to terrorism, Sweden's Security Police (SAPO) warned that "terrorism levels in Sweden remain at an elevated level." The violent Islamist extremism currently represents the most significant threat to Sweden, SAPO's Anders Thornberg said referring to the most recent terror threat evaluation conducted by the National Center for Terrorism Assessment. "Lonely perpetrators" continue to pose the biggest terrorist threat. "The violent extremist environment in Sweden currently comprises about 3000 actors," he said. In a society where "radicalization can be done very quickly," perpetrators can evade the security radar, Thornberg noted. Rosengard is one of the areas across Sweden listed as “a geographically-defined area characterized by a low socio-economic status where criminals have an impact on the local community.” 
“The fact that another police station in the region has been subjected to attacks is completely unacceptable,” Persson, said. In late December last year, an explosion in Varnhem area of central Malmo damaged a parked police car. A 22-year-old was arrested following the incident.
Malmo is one of the Swedish cities recently added by authorities to the list of areas considered to be “especially vulnerable” in terms of challenges they pose to law enforcement. These communities, often labeled “no-go zones” in the media, typically host large populations with migrant backgrounds and suffer from acute poverty and high unemployment.
The city has long been struggling to quell the violence associated with conflicts erupting between different gangs and ethnic groups in recent years.