“There are 50,000/60,000 rejected asylum seekers who have gone underground, including 3,000 in the Stockholm region,” according to Magnus Ranstorp, the head of terrorism research at the Swedish Defense University, interviewed by La Repubblica.  “We know that someone who was rejected as asylum seeker is more sensible to ISIS’ seduction,” he added.

Prof. Ranstorp said that politicians and ordinary citizens — but not intelligence and police agencies — had played down the significance of religious extremism. “Extremism is relatively risk-free in Sweden because there is no judicial punishment,” he said quoted by the New York Times. “There is very short sentencing. And in terms of prevention, the returnees that come back are only sought up by security services.”