Islamist website identifies Stockholm bomber

Sweden said yesterday it was probing two bomb blasts that killed a person in central Stockholm as a “terrorist crime”, as an Al-Qaeda-linked website claim-ed one of its men had carried out the attack.

“We are opening an investigation into a terrorist crime,” said Anders Thornberg, head of the security unit of domestic intelligence Saepo, a day after the suspected suicide attack and separate blast.

The blasts targeted Christmas shoppers in a busy pedestrian quarter of the Swedish capital. Two people were also injured.

“We suspect that it was a suicide attack,” Mr Thornberg said. The man who died may have been the attacker, he said, adding: “We will not draw conclusions too quickly.” “If this was a suicide attack, it will be the first in Sweden,” Mr Thornberg said.

An Islamist website called Shoumoukh al-Islam published a photograph of the man it said was the attacker.

“It is our brother, mujahid Taymour Abdel Wahab, who carried out the martyrdom operation in Stockholm,” it said. The photograph showed a man in dark glasses and Western clothes.

A witness at the scene quoted by Swedish media said he appeared to be a man of 25 or 26 years of age.

About 10 minutes before Saturday’s blasts, the TT news agency and Saepo received an e-mail, which included audio files in both Swedish and Arabic, in which the suspected attacker addresses “Sweden and the Swedish people.”

“Our acts will speak for themselves,” TT quoted the message as saying. “Now your children, your daughters and your sisters will die as our brothers, our sisters and our children are dying.”

The message referred to the Swedish military presence in Afghanistan and to Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has been the object of constant threats since his drawing of the Muslim prophet with the body of a dog was first published in 2007.

Overnight, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt already described the events as a terror attack on his Twitter feed.

“Most worrying attempt at terrorist attack in crowded part of central Stockholm. Failed – but could have been truly catastrophic,” Mr Bildt wrote.

But Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt later cautioned against drawing hasty conclusions.