TWO EXPLOSIONS IN STOCKHOLM
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.8143/pub_detail.asp
Stockholm Christmas Bombing
The two explosions that took place in the Swedish capital of Stockholm appear to have been failures. Two people received minor injuries, and the only person to have been killed in the second blast seems (fortunately) to have been the suicide attacker.
The first blast emanated from a car that was filled with gas canisters and caused the minor injuries, and the second, which took place two minutes later and 650 feet away, was where the dead man was discovered. An eyewitness said:
“There was a man lying on the ground with blood coming out in the area of his belly, and with his personal belongings scattered around him. It shook the store that I was in. Then there was smoke and gunpowder coming into the store.”
The attacks took place in the center of the city, around 5 pm, close to where people were doing Christmas shopping. A video of a secondary blast from the latter of the two explosions can be seen here.
The country’s foreign minister, Carl Bildt, wrote on Twitter that:
“Most worrying attempt at terrorist attack in crowded part of central Stockholm . Failed – but could have been truly catastrophic.”
Around ten minutes before the explosions took place, Sweden’s TT news agency received an email message which criticized “your war against Islam and degrading the prophet,” and made mention of the nation’s “stupid support of that pig Vilks,” a reference to artist Lars Vilk, who depicted the founder of Islam with the body of a dog. The email was accompanied by an audio message. The audio warned:
“Our actions will speak for themselves. Now your children, your daughters and your sisters will die as our brothers, our sisters and our children are dying.”
This appeared to be a reference to Swedish troops based in Afghanistan. Around 500 Swedes are among the coalition forces, based in the north of the country.
A similar message was also sent to Swedish security service Saepo (Säpo). The imam of the Stockholm Grand Mosque, Sheik Hassan Mussa, declared that he condemned:
“all forms of attacks, violence fears and threats against innocent people, whatever the motive or pretext.”
Anders Thornberg, the police and Säpo spokesman in Stockholm, said:
“We are investigating this as terror crimes according to Swedish law. We are still investigating the case. In this situation, we have not raised the security [threat] level.”
Thornberg claimed that there is “no connection” between the events which took place on Saturday with a bomb threat investigation which centered on the city of Gothenberg in late October. Two people, apparently Syrian, had then been arrested, but they were released by November 1.
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