Free European Radio (RFE / RL) announced yesterday that two ISIS mercenaries detained in North-East Syria are suspected of involvement in the 2017 attack, which resulted in the deaths of five people in the Swedish capital Stockholm.

Rakhmat Akilov, who carried out the attack, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2018 for “carrying out an act of terrorism." The two Tajik ISIS mercenaries, were accused of ordering Akilov to attack. They are Parviz Saidrahmanov, codenamed Abu Davud, and Tojiddin Nazarov, who used the name Abu Osama Noraki. Saidrahmanov was declared dead in 2017.

Free Europe Radio claimed that one of the person interviewed by TRT Haber TV in a prison in Afrin was indeed Saidrahmanov. A bureaucrat in Tajikistan, whose name was kept secret, said that his sister had confirmed that it was Saidrahmanov. Tojiddin Nazarov is also detained in Dêir Ezzor, according to the radio.

ETC newspaper journalist and author Joakim Medin, analysing the news, said that those ISIS mercenaries still pose a threat to Sweden.

Reminding that there is a risk of the release of ISIS in the places occupied by the Turkish state, Medin said: "This shows how important it is for the Swedish Government and the International Coalition against ISIS to continue supporting the Kurds in Syria."