Stockhom: A man who died in one of two
explosions in the Swedish capital had explosives strapped to
his body and in his backpack, and had sent threats referring
to "jihad" in an e-mail shortly before his death, a prosecutor
said on Monday.
Tomas Lindstrand said police are "98 per cent"
certain the suicide bomber was a 28-year-old Swedish citizen,
Taimour Abdulwahab, who also lived several years in Britain.
Abdulwahab had his roots in the Middle East and had
been a Swedish citizen since 1992. He was the registered owner
of the car that exploded in Stockholm shortly before the
suicide blast Saturday that also wounded two people.
He said the e-mail threats that were sent to security
police and Swedish news agency TT before the blasts have been
linked to Abdulwahab's cell phone.
Abdulwahab had explosives strapped to his body and in
a backpack, Lindstrand said. He also said he carried
"something that looked like a pressure-cooker."
A Facebook account that appeared to belong to
Abdulwahab showed he previously studied at the University of
Bedfordshire in Luton. On Sunday, British police raided a
property in Bedfordshire, but didn't make any arrests.
On his account he also posted comments against
Shiites, whom Sunni Muslims consider heretics.
He also posted a link to a video showing a dying man,
maybe injured in Chechnya, praying to God to die as martyr.
Abdulwahab commented on the video, writing: "Taimour
likes Abu Dujana, the death of a shaheed (martyr)."
The audio file sent in an e-mail to the security
police and Swedish news agency TT shortly before the blast
referred to jihad, Sweden's military presence in Afghanistan
and an image by a Swedish artist that depicted the Prophet
Muhammad as a dog, enraging many Muslims.
Because of the country's silence toward all this, "so
will your children, daughters, brothers and sisters die, like
our brothers, sister and children die," a man's voice said in
the file, submitted to The Associated Press by TT.
"Now the Islamic state has been created. We now exist
here in Europe and in Sweden. We are a reality," he said. "I
don't want to say more about this. Our actions will speak for
themselves."
PTI
First Published: Monday, December 13, 2010, 21:40