Stockholm suicide attacker carried three bombs

Swedish authorities said Monday that the would-be suicide attacker who blew himself up in Stockholm over the weekend was carrying at least three bombs and may have had accomplices.

Prosecutor Tomas Lindstrand said the man, believed to be Taimour Abdulwahab Abdaly, 28, was also the owner of a car that exploded Saturday afternoon in a busy shopping district in the Swedish capital. A few minutes after that blast, the bomber blew up explosives he was carrying. No one else was killed, although two people suffered minor injuries.

Abdaly was an Iraqi-born Swede who maintained a home in Britain and who once stormed out of a mosque there after being told his extremist religious views were unacceptable. British investigators late Sunday and early Monday searched the home where Abdaly is believed to have lived.

Lindstrand said the attacker wore an explosives belt, carried a backpack and held a pressure-cooker-like device in his hands. All three contained bombs. One of the explosives may have detonated before the bomber could reach his target, possibly Stockholm’s central train station or a popular shopping mall, where the death toll from such an attack could have been high.

Investigators are trying to determine whether the bomber acted alone or belonged to a terrorist cell.

“We know that he was alone in the actual execution, but we also know from experience that there tends to be more people involved in such acts,” Lindstrand told reporters. “We assume that he had accomplices in some way.”

Minutes before the bombs went off, a Swedish news agency received an e-mail containing sound files that warned of jihad against Sweden and its people. The message lambasted the Scandinavian country for sending troops to Afghanistan and for its “war against Islam,” and called on Muslim fighters to rise up throughout Europe.

“Now your children, daughters and sisters will die just like our brothers, sisters and children are dying,” the e-mail said.

Though apparently botched, Saturday’s bombing was the first terrorist attack in Sweden in decades, horrifying a nation that prides itself on its openness and tolerance but where a recent influx of immigrants, many of them Muslim, has sparked tension. In October, 20 members of a far-right party won seats in the Swedish parliament after campaigning on an anti-Muslim platform.

Swedish authorities said they had not flagged Abdaly as a potential threat and had little information about him.

But in the British town of Luton, about 25 miles northwest of London, police raided a house believed to be the residence of Abdaly and his wife and children. Abdaly moved to Britain in about 2001 and earned a degree in sports therapy at a nearby university in 2004, the Associated Press reported.

At some point, he began developing radical views of Islam, which put him in conflict with the local mosque.

“He just had theological doubts, extreme views, which he was spreading, which we put an end to, and he stormed out of the mosque,” Abdul Qadeer Baksh, the chairman of the Luton Islamic Center, told the BBC.

But members of the mosque did not suspect that Abdaly would resort to violence, Baksh said.

The sender of the e-mail sent to the Swedish news agency — believed to be Abdaly — apologized to his family for misleading them about his activities before the bombings. “I never went to the Middle East to work or to make money. I went for jihad,” the message says.

In Stockholm on Monday, dozens of Iraqis waving both Swedish and Iraqi flags gathered at the site of the attack to condemn terrorism.

“I’ve been so worried. I haven’t been able to sleep since Saturday,” said Abir al-Salahni, an Iraqi-born member of parliament. “For me personally it’s important to show that not all Iraqis are like this.”

henry.chu@latimes.com

Special correspondent Sandels reported from Stockholm and Times staff writer Chu from London.