A Middle East-born man killed in a blast in Stockholm wore an explosives belt and was geared up to attack a crowded train station or department store when the device went off prematurely, an official said on Monday. Police were all but certain the attacker was Taymour Abdulwahab, born in 1981 and an emigrant to Sweden in 1992.
-- Sent email condemning Swedish troops in Afghanistan
Interviews with people who knew him painted a portrait of a bubbly, fun-loving man who became increasingly radical in his views. He had strong ties to Britain, where he studied and lived with his wife and two children, and where he also fell out with a local mosque in 2007 for his extreme political opinions.
The attack, the first of its kind in Sweden, has also heightened anxiety about possible militant threats in Europe during the holiday season. Britain has said it is in contact with Sweden on developments. The incident began when a car containing gas canisters blew up in a busy shopping area in central Stockholm on Saturday. That was followed minutes later by a blast nearby which killed the bomber and hurt two people.
"He was wearing a bomb belt and was carrying a backpack with a bomb," Sweden's chief prosecutor, Tomas Lindstrand, told a news conference. "He was also carrying an object that looks something like a pressure cooker. If it had all exploded at the same time it could have caused very serious damage," Lindstrand said.
"It is not a very wild guess that he was headed to some place where there were as many people as possible, perhaps the central station, perhaps (department store) Ahlens," he said. The official said he assumed the man had accomplices as the attack was well planned. Lindstrand said the man was almost certainly Abdulwahab, who had been widely named in media.
He said Abdulwahab came from a Middle Eastern country, although it was unclear which. An entry by Abdulwahab on a Muslim dating website gave his birthplace as Iraq. The Swedish immigration service told Reuters he came to Sweden in 1992 and got citizenship six years later. He studied at the University of Bedfordshire in the southern English town of Luton and graduated with a degree in sports therapy in 2004. In Luton, British police searched a house where Abdulwahab lived with his wife and children. Luton is home to a large Muslim community and come under the attention of Britain's security services before.
The suicide bombers behind a deadly July 2005 attack on London's transport system had met in Luton on the day of the attacks, abandoning their cars at the station to catch a train into the capital where they detonated their bombs. In Sweden, Abdulwahab lived in the small town of Tranas, about 200 km (124 miles) south-west of Stockholm.
A house there has also been searched by police. "From what I know, he has lived and studied in England for some years and has been travelling to Sweden," said Swedish Security Police Director of Operations Anders Thornberg. "He has some relatives in Sweden and he also, what I know, has another life in England," he told Reuters Television.
Shortly before the blasts, Swedish news agency TT received a threatening letter with an attached sound file criticising Sweden's troops in Afghanistan and caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) by a Swedish artist which stirred anger in 2007.
"To all Muslims in Sweden I say: stop fawning and humiliating yourselves for a life of humiliation is far from Islam. Help your brothers and sisters and do not fear anything or anyone, only the God you worship," the letter said. The man also says to his family: "I never went to the Middle East to work or earn money, I went there for jihad. I hope that you can understand me some time."
Abdulwahab's radical views had emerged in Britain. Farasat Latif, secretary of the Luton Islamic Centre Mosque, said Abdulwahab worshipped there in 2007. "He was very friendly, bubbly initially, and people liked him. But he came to the attention of our committee for preaching extremist ideas," Latif told Reuters. When confronted, Abdulwahab stormed out and was not seen again at the mosque.
In his home town in Sweden, residents also described an outwardly fun-loving person. "He was very handsome and outgoing. No one would dream he could do something like this," said one woman who knew him in his teens. "I am absolutely devastated." Swedish officials said Abdulwahab had never come to their attention before.
Though Sweden has never had such an attack before, the Security Police have acted over the years to stop people travelling from Sweden to conflict zones, particularly Somalia. A court on Friday convicted two men linked to the al Shabaab militant group for conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and sentenced them to four years in jail. "Although the attack failed to cause extensive casualties and the security services in Scandinavia have been active in disrupting previous plots, the blasts do highlight the ongoing risk of terrorist attack in Sweden," Matthew Clements, an analyst at IHS Jane's Eurasia, said.