Email warning linked to Stockholm bomb blasts

Swedish police investigating the death of an apparent suicide bomber in Stockholm last night had received a threatening email just quarter of an hour before the man died. The email raised the issue of Sweden's troops serving in Afghanistan, and brought up again the long-running complaint among Islamic extremists of a 2007 Swedish cartoon that depicted the prophet Mohammed as a dog.

Swedish media say the suspected bomber was found dead with a major wound to his abdomen, as if something had exploded on his stomach, and with a bag of nails by his side. An earlier car bomb caused only minor injuries in two people.

Police are working on the assumption the two explosions, which took place five minutes apart in the crowded centre of the city, were linked.

Ten minutes before the first explosion, actually a series of blasts probably caused by gas canisters in a parked car, the threatening email was received by police and the TT news
agency.

TT said the email had sound files attached with threats made in Arabic and Swedish, including: "Now your children, daughters and sisters will die like our brothers and sisters and children are dying. Our actions will speak for themselves."

Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt broke news of the attack via his Twitter account, writing: "Most worrying attempt at terrorist attack in crowded part of central Stockholm. Failed - but could have been truly catastrophic."

The email warning apparently refers to Sweden’s 500 troops in Afghanistan as a motive – but it also cited "your stupid support" for the Swedish artist-turned-cartoonist Lars Vilks, described as a "pig".

Vilks is a prominent Swedish art theorist and artist who rose to fame in 2007 when a series of drawings he made of a dog with a bearded and turbaned human head apparently representing the Muslim prophet Mohammed were withdrawn from an exhibition.

One of the sketches was published in the Nerikes Allehanda newspaper to illustrate an article on freedom of speech, with predictable results. After the usual mechanical outrage and official condemnation from Egypt, Iran and other Muslim states, the threats began.

An al-Qaeda-affiliated organisation quickly offered a $150,000 prize for his assassination. Vilks now has police protection and has been physically attacked at least once while an arson attempt on his home failed.

Just last month, a Swedish fighter with the Somali terror group al-Shabab warned Vilks that "we haven’t yet forgotten about you" and pledged to "slaughter" him in an internet video. ·