Foxtrot Network: The shadowy gang recruiting teen killers across Europe

In a Stockholm suburb a man dressed in black appeared out of the winter night. Carrying a handgun, he approached 20-year-old Murad Abdelkader, a student on his way back from a shift at McDonald's. The gunman opened fire, shooting again and again as he approached his target. He fired the last shot into his victim's head as he lay helpless on the ground. The killer was 18-year-old Atilla Azimov. On that February night last year, he had killed the wrong man. He had done it for money - hired by the Foxtrot Network, an organised crime group with links to the Iranian regime which has become notorious for its violence-as-a-service (VaaS) tactics. Since 2022, the Foxtrot Network is thought to have been responsible for about 35 murders as well as a number of attacks and attempted attacks on Israeli targets in Europe including two involving explosives and hand grenades. The gang recruits teenagers to carry out the attacks for cash, but it almost never has to pay out as they often get caught. Like Johannes Natland, a Norwegian teenager who was convicted of conspiracy to murder by a jury at the Old Bailey in London on Wednesday for a planned killing in West Yorkshire. According to Operational