#Last night in Sweden ...

Donald Trump roasted for false terror attack claim

WASHINGTON // Bowling Green, Atlanta and now Sweden? Donald Trump on Saturday added to the list of non-existent terror attacks cited by his administration on Saturday.

Addressing supporters at a campaign- style rally in Florida, the United States president launched into a list of places targeted by terrorists.

“You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible,” Mr Trump said while defending his order last month that blocked refugees and travellers from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US. The order was suspended by a federal appeals court but he vowed to introduce a new order this week.

Users on Twitter, Mr Trump’s favourite communications platform, were quick to react to his false attack claim using hashtags #lastnightinSweden and #SwedenIncident.

Former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt asked: “Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound.” Gunnar Hokmark, a Swedish member of the European parliament, retweeted a post that said “#lastnightinSweden my son dropped his hotdog in the campfire. So sad!”

Posts flooded into @sweden, the country’s official Twitter account which is run by a different Swede each week. “No. Nothing has happened here in Sweden. There has not been any terrorist attacks here. At all. The main news right now is about Melfest,” said this week’s curator of the account, Emma, a school librarian and mother. Melfest is the competition to pick a performer to represent Sweden at the annual Eurovision song contest.

Trump aides have faced criticism for alluding to massacres that never took place.

White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway – who coined the term “alternative facts” – mentioned a “Bowling Green massacre”. She later tweeted that she meant to say “Bowling Green terrorists” – referring to two Iraqi men from the city who were indicted in 2011 for trying to send money and weapons to Al Qaeda, and for using improvised explosive devices against US soldiers in Iraq. White House spokesman Sean Spicer made three references in one week to an attack in Atlanta. He later said he meant to say Orlando, where an American of Afghan origin gunned down 49 people at a nightclub last year.