Stockholm Man Killed in Explosion Was Terrorist Bomber, Swedish Police Say
Swedisn Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt
Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. Photographer: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images
A suspected terrorist bomber killed himself and injured two other people in separate explosions near a central shopping street in Stockholm, police said.
Sweden’s Security Service is investigating the two blasts a few hundred meters apart around 5 p.m. local time yesterday. The first set a car on fire, the second killed the suspect and injured two people, Stockholm police said in a statement on its website today. Shortly before the explosions, police and a Swedish news agency received an e-mail with a sound recordings in Swedish and Arabic from a man who said it was “time to strike” because a “war was being waged against Islam.”
“We don’t know yet that the three incidents are connected, even if much evidence points to this,” Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said at a news conference in Stockholm. “It’s important to say that this is unacceptable and very serious, but let’s be patient and let the police and the security police work.” It is important not to victimize groups in society based on presumption, he added.
Sweden has about 500 soldiers in Afghanistan serving as part of the International Security Assistance Force engaged in provincial reconstruction in Mazar-e-Sharif. Swedish artist Lars Vilks drew anger from Muslims after newspaper Nerikes Allehanda published one of his drawings of the Prophet Mohammed’s head on a dog’s body in 2007.
Anger Against Troops
In the recording, the suspect expresses anger against Vilks and the Afghan deployment, Expressen said. He apologizes to his family for lying about his trips to the Middle East saying he did not go to earn money but “for Jihad.”
“This is a very serious incident which is being investigated as an act of terrorism,” Anders Thornberg, director of operations at the Swedish Security Service, told a news conference in Stockholm. “It’s too early to tell if the dead man is connected with some kind of network.”
Thornberg declined to confirm media reports that the dead man had explosives strapped to his chest.
“There may be a connection between the two blasts and one theory is that the owner of the car and the dead man are one and the same,” Thornberg said.
The name of the man killed in the blast has not been released. The SVT national broadcaster identified the author of the messages as the owner of the car that burned, a 1993 Audi 80, as a male Swedish national, aged 28, of foreign parents from Tranaas, in the south of the country.
‘Most Worrying Attempt’
“Most worrying attempt at terrorist attack in crowded part of central Stockholm,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt wrote on Twitter. “Failed -- but could have been truly catastrophic.”
The coalition led by Reinfeldt has maintained its lead over the opposition since it won elections on Sept. 19, while support for the anti-immigration Swedish Democrats has risen, an opinion poll by Statistics Sweden showed on Dec. 8.
The outcome of the election, in which Reinfeldt’s government became a minority because of the success of the Sweden Democrats, prompted demonstrations against the party’s stance on immigration in a country that has traditionally welcomed incomers. In the southern city of Malmoe, a year-long shooting spree in which several immigrants were victims and one person was murdered ended in November when a man was arrested on suspicion of targeting people with foreign backgrounds.
Thornberg said that the security service was not planning to raise the terror threat level assessment, which was kept under constant review. The service raised its terror alert level from “low” to “elevated” in October saying Swedish-based groups could be plotting attacks. It then emphasized that the threat to Sweden was not seen as “imminent.”
To contact the reporter responsible for this story: Kim McLaughlin at kmclaughlin6@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tim Quinson at tquinson@bloomberg.net
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