Police call Stockholm bombings 'terrorist crime'

Sweden's security service has taken over the investigation into a pair of bombings in downtown Stockholm that authorities are calling "a terrorist crime."

Two blasts just minutes apart shook a busy shopping district Saturday, killing one man and injuring two others in an apparently coordinated attack.

Just before 5 p.m. local time a car filled with canisters of liquefied gasoline exploded on a street crowded with Christmas shoppers, sending two passers-by to hospital with minor injuries.

Fifteen minutes later a second bomb went off about 200 metres away from the first explosion, killing one man who police said was carrying six more bombs strapped to his body.

At a news conference on Sunday, the Swedish security service SAPO said it was too soon to say whether the two bombings were connected, but added that it was looking into the possibility of further attacks.

"We are opening an investigation into a terrorist crime under Swedish laws," said Anders Thornberg, the head of SAPO's security department. "We're now working to assess whether similar events might take place. We can't rule it out."

Thornberg said SAPO had no immediate plans to raise Sweden's terrorist threat level, although he said the attacks were "very serious."

The agency would not confirm reports that the man who died in the apparent suicide bombing was the owner of the car destroyed in the first blast, but Thornberg acknowledged that it was one hypothesis SAPO was investigating.

"We can't confirm anything yet," he said.

A representative from the Stockholm police added that residents in the Swedish capital will likely notice an increased police presence in the coming days.

Shortly before the two explosions, which sent Christmas shoppers scrambling for cover on one of Stockholm's busiest downtown streets, both SAPO and the TT news agency received an e-mail citing cartoons by Swedish artist Lars Vilks portraying the prophet Mohammed as well as Sweden's small military mission in Afghanistan as reasons for the attacks.

TT reported that audio files in Swedish and Arabic attached to the e-mail said: "The time has come to take action. Now your children, daughters and sisters shall die like our brothers and sisters and children are dying."

Thornberg said it was still too early to confirm a connection between the blasts and the e-mail.

The incident began when a parked car burst into flames in Stockholm's city centre, followed by a series of explosions inside the car that police said were caused by gas canisters.

A few minutes later there was a second explosion just up the street from the car blast, leaving a man's body lying on the sidewalk.

Witnesses said a pipe bomb was visible beside the body and police cordoned off several blocks around the area, sending in a bomb squad robot to examine the man's body.

Police bomb technicians found six pipe bombs on the body, wired together along with a backpack full of nails and another bomb, according to the Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet. Only one of the bombs exploded, apparently killing the man.

The newspaper reported that witnesses said the man shouted something in Arabic before the bomb detonated.

"It looked as if the man had been carrying something that exploded in his stomach," a paramedic at the scene told the newspaper Dagens Nyheter. "He had no injuries to the face or body in general and the shops around were not damaged."

The paramedic, identified only as Pascal, said he removed a "Palestinian scarf" from the man's face in an attempt to free up his airways. Next to the man's body was a two-metre piece of metal piping.

Witness Gabriel Gabiro told The Associated Press that he heard the second explosion from inside a watch store across the street and saw smoke coming from the area where the man was lying.

"It shook the store that I was in," Gabiro said. "Then there was smoke and gun powder coming into the store."

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said in his blog that the attack "failed -- but could have been truly catastrophic."

Sweden -- which has so far been spared any large terrorist attacks -- had raised its terror threat alert level from low to elevated in October because of "a shift in activities" among Swedish-based groups that could be plotting attacks there.

The security police said at the time that the terrorism threat in Sweden remained low compared to that in other European countries, and no attack was imminent.

Investigators said Sunday that they had good leads into the attacks, but Thornberg could neither confirm that the man who died was a suicide bomber nor discuss his identity.