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One man dead after blasts in Sweden
Mia Shanley and Ilze Filks, Reuters · Saturday, Dec. 11, 2010
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/dead+after+blasts+Sweden/3964028/story.html
One dead after suicide bombing in Stockholm
Published: 11 Dec 10 21:37 CET
Updated: 12 Dec 10 01:24 CET
http://www.thelocal.se/30776/20101211/
Mia Shanley and Ilze Filks, Reuters · Saturday, Dec. 11, 2010
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/dead+after+blasts+Sweden/3964028/story.html
STOCKHOLM — Two blasts rocked the centre of Stockholm on Saturday in a possible attack inspired by Sweden’s presence in Afghanistan, killing the bomber and wounding two other people, police and media said.
Swedish news agency TT said that 10 minutes before the first blast, when a car exploded near a busy shopping street, it received an email with threats over the Swedish presence in Afghanistan and over a years-old case of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad by a Swedish artist.
Police spokesman Kjell Lindgren said the car exploded at peak shopping hours at 5 p.m. (1600 GMT). About 10 to 15 minutes later another explosion took place on a street 300 metres (984 ft) away.
A man was found dead near the second explosion and two people with minor injuries were also found nearby.
Asked if the man blew himself up in some way, Lindgren said: “It is possible.”
Investigations were continuing to see if the two incidents were linked, he said.
A bag found near the dead man had also been examined, but no more explosives were found in it, he said.
Newspaper Aftonbladet quoted a source as saying that the man was carrying six pipebombs, of which only one exploded. He also had a rucksack full of nails and suspected explosive material, the newspaper said.
TT said the email it received was also sent to the Security Police, which was not immediately available to comment.
TT said the threat was linked to Sweden’s contribution to the U.S.-led NATO force in Afghanistan, where it has 500 soldiers, mainly in the north.
It also referred to caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad by the Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who depicted the Prophet with the body of a dog in a cartoon in 2007. Most Muslims consider any depiction of the founder of Islam as offensive.
The email had sound files in Swedish and Arabic.
“Our actions will speak for themselves, as long as you do not end your war against Islam and humiliation of the Prophet and your stupid support for the pig Vilks,” TT quoted a man as saying in one of the recordings.
Last March, an American who called herself “JihadJane” was charged with plotting to kill Vilks and using the Internet to enlist co-conspirators.
In May, arsonists tried to set fire to his house.
Vilks, contacted by Reuters Television, was safe.
“This is the first casualty of my project,” he said. “It was an act against the Swedish people to scare them and not to me. The good news was that a terrorist died and not someone else.”
Lindgren said it was not clear what caused the car to explode. After the first explosion, the gas canisters caused smaller blasts, he said.
Media reported scenes of panic among Christmas shoppers, with people fleeing amid smoke and the smell of explosives.
“It looked as if the man had carried something that exploded in his stomach,” Pascal, a trained medic, was quoted as saying on the website of newspaper Dagens Nyheter.
“He had no injuries to the face or body in general and the shops around were not damaged.”
Dany Daraghji, who works in a coffee shop near the scene of the first blast, said the area had been crowded.
“I heard a loud noise. I thought something fell...There were many people outside and here inside, some people went out to take photos,” he told Reuters.
In January, a Somali man was indicted for terrorism and attempted murder for breaking into the home of the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard and threatening him with an axe.
A cartoon by Westergaard in 2005 that depicted the Prophet Mohammad with a turban shaped like a bomb caused outrage across the Muslim world, with at least 50 people killed in riots in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
One dead after suicide bombing in Stockholm
Published: 11 Dec 10 21:37 CET
Updated: 12 Dec 10 01:24 CET
http://www.thelocal.se/30776/20101211/
Two nearly simultaneous explosions rocked central Stockholm on Saturday evening, killing one person and injuring two others in what is believed to be a suicide attack.
The fatal blast occurred just minutes after a car exploded on another nearby street sending two people to hospital.
Roughly ten minutes before the explosions, Swedish news agency TT received an email telling Muslims in Sweden and Europe it was "time to take action".
Sveriges Television (SVT) reported that both explosions, which occurred about 200 metres from one another, were part of a suicide attack in the Swedish capital.
Writing from his Twitter account shortly after midnight on Saturday night, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt referred to the incident as a "terrorist attack".
"Most worrying attempt at terrorist attack in crowded part of central Stockholm," wrote Bildt.
"Failed -- but could have been truly catastrophic..." he added.
Bildt's comments, sent from his Twitter account, effectively confirmed earlier reports in the Swedish media that the two almost simultaneous explosions had been an attack.
The first blast in the car left two passers-by in need of hospital treatment for minor injuries, said emergency services spokesperson Bengt Norberg.
A second alert was received two minutes later and one person was found dead at the scene of the second blast which took place in the street, he added.
"I cannot confirm that the death is linked to the explosion of the car but I cannot deny it either," police spokeswoman Petra Sjolandero told AFP.
She added that the car caught fire "following a series of explosions which could have been from gas canisters."
Police later told the TT news agency that the car explosion was caused by cannisters containing liquefied petroleum gas.
According to the TT news agency, police are operating under the assumption that the man who died wasn’t injured in a car explosion but instead blew himself up.
The first emergency calls came in at 4.52pm on Saturday, with police fielding dozens of calls about a car exploding at the intersection of Drottninggatan and Olof Palmes gata in central Stockholm.
“We’ve received at least 50 calls to 112,” said Norberg told TT, referring to Sweden’s emergency telephone number.
Later, a man was found dead at the intersection of Bryggargatan and Drottninggatan.
A man who arrived on the scene before the police arrived told the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper that the dead man had a large wound in his abdomen.
“It looked like the man was carrying something that exploded on his stomach. He didn’t have any injuries to his face or his body and the stores nearby weren’t damaged. All the windows were whole,” the witness told DN.
The body was still lying in the street at 11pm on Saturday evening as police continued their investigation.
"They are still at the scene working and at this point we have nothing new to report," police spokesperson Kjell Lindgren told TT.
A bomb squad from the Stockholm police was examining the scene following the explosion.
According to the Stockholm police, a bag was found nearby the man who died in the second explosion.
Police refused to divulge details about the bag's contents. However, several Swedish media outlets report that the bag was filled with nails.
Members of the Stockholm police force met with counterparts from Swedish security service Säpo for several hours on Saturday evening and were unavailable for comment.
Approximately ten minutes before the explosions occurred, Swedish news agency TT received an email, also addressed to Säpo, in which a reached out to “Sweden and the Swedish people”.
He cites Sweden’s silence surrounding the cartoons by Swedish Lars Vilks which portray the prophet Mohammed as a dog, the Swedish troops in Afghanistan, saying in audio files attached to the email that “now your children, daughters and sisters die like our brothers’ and sisters’ children die”.
“Our actions will speak for themselves. As long as you don’t stop your war against Islam and degrading the prophet and your stupid support of that pig Vilks,” the man said.
The man also urges all Muslims in Sweden to “stop sucking up to and degrading”. He concludes the message with yet another call to “all the mujahedeen in Europe and Sweden”.
“Now it’s time to act, don’t wait any longer. Fear no one, don’t fear prison, don’t fear death.”
Säpo hasn’t commented to TT on the contents of the message or confirmed that it also received the email, which included audio files in both Swedish and Arabic.
There is also no confirmation that the message has anything to do with the explosions.
However, Säpo later confirmed for the Aftonbladet newspaper that the agency had received the same email that was sent to TT.
“It came into our registry. It was handed over to our case officer for review,” Säpo spokesperson Michael Gunnarsson told the newspaper.
The audio files attached to the email don’t specify if the man belonged to any organisation. However, he does say he has been to the Middle East and that he asked his family for forgiveness for lying to them.
“I never went to the Middle East to work or earn money, I went there for jihad,” said the man.
Speaking with SVT shortly before 1am on Sunday morning, Stockholm police spokesperson Ulf Göranzon said police were still not ready to confirm that the man found dead following Saturday's blast had killed himself in a suicide attack.
"We haven't been able to ascertain how this person died, and therefore I have comment on that," he said.
In addition to investigating how the man died, police are also working on establishing his identity, Göranzon added.
He also refused to comment on the contents of the bag found next to the man, nor would he confirm whether or not the two explosions were related.
However, Göranzon admitted that police were "thinking along those lines" in part because the explosions took place so close to one another.
). The techniques are easily found on the internet, with both attacks being pretty inconsequential because of the chosen method's inherent shortcomings.
