Post by Teddy Bear on Dec 12, 2010 18:18:26 GMT
Given that the BBC have journalists stationed in nearly every country throughout the world, one would think they would be first with the news and details of a particular incident.
So one has to question why the Daily Mail is not only able to give us this suicide bomber's name, but also quite a bit of his background. According to the BBC take on the story, and I waited till they updated it after the time of the Daily Mail article, the Swedish police had still not released his name.
When you see some of the details about this man, and the fact that he had been studying at a university on Luton, one can see why the BBC wants to avoid telling us about him. It doesn't fit in with their agenda.
Here's the Mail article, who acknowledge that the police have not officially named him, yet they have still been able to glean and share this information:
And the BBC's
Stockholm blasts: Sweden probes 'terrorist attack'
12 December 2010 Last updated at 17:54
Two explosions in Sweden's capital Stockholm are being investigated as a "crime of terror", officials say.
A car blew up in a busy shopping area on Saturday afternoon, followed moments later by a second explosion nearby.
Witnesses said a man found dead after the second blast had been carrying an explosive device. Two people were hurt.
Swedish PM Fredrik Reinfeldt condemned the attacks as unacceptable in an open society with a functioning democracy that respects different cultures.
"Our democracy functions well," he told a press conference. "Those who feel frustration or anger have the opportunity to express it without resorting to violence."
Lone operator?
Swedish security police have not yet released the dead man's name, although director of operations Anders Thornberg says they now have a clearer idea about him.
"As far as we know it looks like he has been working for himself but we don't know, we have to make that really sure," he said.
"So we are investigating whether there could be more perpetrators. We don't know."
Swedish media have named a 28-year-old man of Iraqi origin as the suspected bomber.
Police are investigating a set of e-mails sent shortly before the blasts threatening attacks because Sweden had sent troops to Afghanistan.
Sweden has some 500 soldiers deployed in Afghanistan as part of the international military force.
Police are trying to work out whether the explosions were an isolated attack or part of a larger conspiracy, says the BBC's Stephen Evans in Stockholm.
The e-mails, with MP3 audio files in Swedish and Arabic, were sent to the Swedish security service and the TT news agency.
They called for "mujahideen" - or Islamist fighters - to rise up in Sweden and Europe, promising Swedes would "die like our brothers and sisters".
They also attacked the country for caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad drawn by Swedish artist Lars Vilks.
A man found dead near the site of the second explosion has not been named
"The mail was about one man," police spokesman Ulf Goranzon told a press conference on Sunday.
"He was not satisfied with developments in Sweden regarding [the fact] that we have military troops in other countries, that there had been protests and that there have been said bad things about the Prophet [Muhammad]."
Sweden has a reputation for openness and tolerance, but in recent years, tensions have risen, our correspondent says.
There has been resentment at immigration as the economy has stuttered, and some Muslims have grown more militant.
In September, the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats won 20 seats in parliament, taking 5.7% of the vote.
If confirmed as a suicide bombing, the attack would be the first of its kind in Sweden. However, Swedish citizens have been linked to suicide bomb plots abroad.
On Thursday, a court in Gothenburg found two Swedish citizens of Somali origin guilty of planning suicide attacks in Somalia.
The imam of Stockholm's main mosque, Sheik Hassan Mussa, said in a statement he deplored "all forms of attacks, violence fears and threats against innocent people, whatever the motive or pretext."
Twin blasts
Saturday's blasts struck as people were out Christmas shopping.
The car had contained gas canisters and there were a series of minor explosions, a spokesman told the BBC.
Unconfirmed reports in Sweden's Aftonbladet newspaper said the man found dead near the site of the second blast had been carrying pipe bombs, as well as a backpack full of nails.
Eyewitnesses saw him lying on the ground with blood coming out of his stomach.
Tweeting about the blasts, Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said a terrorist attack that could have been "truly catastrophic" had failed.
In November, Sweden raised its terror alert level from low to elevated because of a "shift in activities" among Swedish-based groups thought to be plotting attacks.
A security official said the threat level had not been raised as a result of Saturday's attacks.
So one has to question why the Daily Mail is not only able to give us this suicide bomber's name, but also quite a bit of his background. According to the BBC take on the story, and I waited till they updated it after the time of the Daily Mail article, the Swedish police had still not released his name.
When you see some of the details about this man, and the fact that he had been studying at a university on Luton, one can see why the BBC wants to avoid telling us about him. It doesn't fit in with their agenda.
Here's the Mail article, who acknowledge that the police have not officially named him, yet they have still been able to glean and share this information:
Suicide bomber who killed himself in Stockholm terrorist blasts studied at British university
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 5:10 PM on 12th December 2010
* Taimour al-Abdaly graduated from Bedfordshire in 2004
* He worked as a sandwich-boardad man on street he attacked
* He detonated himself in shopping centre after setting off car bomb
A suicide bomber who died in a terrorist bomb attack which rocked Stockholm city centre, is believed to be a graduate from a British university.
A Facebook page thought to belong to the 29-year-old indicated that he studied sports therapy at the University of Bedfordshire in Luton. He graduated in 2004.
The man, named locally as Taimour Abdulwahab Al-Abdaly, had also posted numerous videos relating to the Iraq war, the war in Chechnya and the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.
The Iraqi-born bomber first set his car on fire and then walked 200 metres before the explosives, believed to be in a backpack strapped to his body, detonated.
Just minutes before, he had sent out an email to the police and a news agency warning of deadly reprisals for having Swedish soldiers in Afghanistan.
He was the registered owner of the car that blew up and was believed to have worked on the street corner on which he died, carrying a sign advertising a local fish-and-chip restaurant..
The man is also thought to have been active on Muslim contact sites, where he claimed to be looking for a second wife.
In one message on the site Muslima.com, he says that he was born in Iraq and moved to Sweden in 1992. He said he had two daughters, one aged three and one under the age of two. He said he wanted to marry again and that his first wife had agreed to this.
His favourite pages on Facebook included ‘Yawm al-Qiyaamah’, the Islamic ‘Day of Ressurection’. The page’s signature image features London’s Tower Bridge being engulfed in flames and floods.
'In the future, am looking for to move to an arabic [sic] country and settle down there,' he wrote.
Investigators will be certain to investigate the man’s connections with Luton, a town which has featured in numerous terror investigations in the past.
A leaked British intelligence report from 2008 identified Luton as being home to one of the main concentrations of Islamic extremists in the country.
The men behind the 7/7 bombings of London’s public transport system in 2005 gathered in the town before heading into the British capital. The leader of the gang, Mohammed Sidique Khan, was in regular contact with a man in Luton known as ‘Q’, who was funneling money and equipment to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Police currently believe his bomb may not have detonated properly and too early. They are keen to trace a man who was seen speaking to the suspect just minutes before his backpack exploded.
Officially, police said that they did not know the identity of the bomber.
But a source told the newspaper Expressen. that they were '95 percent certain” that the car owner and the suicide bomber were the same person. They have linked the blasts and are investigating them as 'crimes of terror.'
Swedish Radio claim that police are searching the suspected terrorist’s apartment in Tranås.
Shoppers were lucky to escape a 'catastrophe' according to Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt .
He wrote on Twitter: 'Most worrying attempt at terrorist attack. Failed - but could have been truly catastrophic.'
Two people were slightly injured when the car - packed with gas cannisters - exploded at 4.50pm on Saturday.
The second blast was about 200 metres (650 feet) away. A man thought to be the bomber was found injured on the ground and later pronounced dead.
A bag filled with nails was found near him, according to Swedish news agency SVT. Witnesses said he had a large wound to his stomach as if something had exploded there.
Gabriel Gabiro, who heard the second blast from inside a watch store across the street, said: 'There was a man lying on the ground with blood coming out in the area of his belly, and with his personal belongings scattered around him
'It shook the store that I was in. Then there was smoke and gun powder coming in. I saw some people crying.'
The local news agency TT received an e-mail in Arabic and Swedish saying 'the time has come to take action.'
The e-mail referred to Sweden's silence surrounding cartoonist Lars Vilk's drawing of Muhammad as a dog and its soldiers in Afghanistan.
It warned: ' Our acts will speak for themselves. Now your children, daughters and sisters shall die like our brothers and sisters and children are dying.'
Punitive actions would continue 'as long as you do not stop your war against Islam, your degradation of the Prophet and your stupid support for the pig Vilks.'
Vilks has been the object of death threats and at least one plot to kill him.
In the message to his family contained in the audio file sent to the news agency the man referred to an earlier trip to the Middle East:
'I never went to the Middle East to work or earn money. I went there for Jihad,' he said.
The message concluded by urging 'mujahideen,' or Islamic fighters, to rise up in Sweden and in Europe, the news agency said.
TT said a similar warning had been sent to the Swedish Security Service SAPO.
Sweden has 500 soldiers serving with NATO's International Security Assistance force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, but their mandate only runs to January 1, 2011, and would need to be renewed by parliament for them to stay on.
On October 1, Sweden's intelligence agency Saepo said it had raised the alert level for attacks from low to elevated, putting it at three on an alert scale of five.
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 5:10 PM on 12th December 2010
* Taimour al-Abdaly graduated from Bedfordshire in 2004
* He worked as a sandwich-boardad man on street he attacked
* He detonated himself in shopping centre after setting off car bomb
A suicide bomber who died in a terrorist bomb attack which rocked Stockholm city centre, is believed to be a graduate from a British university.
A Facebook page thought to belong to the 29-year-old indicated that he studied sports therapy at the University of Bedfordshire in Luton. He graduated in 2004.
The man, named locally as Taimour Abdulwahab Al-Abdaly, had also posted numerous videos relating to the Iraq war, the war in Chechnya and the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.
The Iraqi-born bomber first set his car on fire and then walked 200 metres before the explosives, believed to be in a backpack strapped to his body, detonated.
Just minutes before, he had sent out an email to the police and a news agency warning of deadly reprisals for having Swedish soldiers in Afghanistan.
He was the registered owner of the car that blew up and was believed to have worked on the street corner on which he died, carrying a sign advertising a local fish-and-chip restaurant..
The man is also thought to have been active on Muslim contact sites, where he claimed to be looking for a second wife.
In one message on the site Muslima.com, he says that he was born in Iraq and moved to Sweden in 1992. He said he had two daughters, one aged three and one under the age of two. He said he wanted to marry again and that his first wife had agreed to this.
His favourite pages on Facebook included ‘Yawm al-Qiyaamah’, the Islamic ‘Day of Ressurection’. The page’s signature image features London’s Tower Bridge being engulfed in flames and floods.
'In the future, am looking for to move to an arabic [sic] country and settle down there,' he wrote.
Investigators will be certain to investigate the man’s connections with Luton, a town which has featured in numerous terror investigations in the past.
A leaked British intelligence report from 2008 identified Luton as being home to one of the main concentrations of Islamic extremists in the country.
The men behind the 7/7 bombings of London’s public transport system in 2005 gathered in the town before heading into the British capital. The leader of the gang, Mohammed Sidique Khan, was in regular contact with a man in Luton known as ‘Q’, who was funneling money and equipment to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Police currently believe his bomb may not have detonated properly and too early. They are keen to trace a man who was seen speaking to the suspect just minutes before his backpack exploded.
Officially, police said that they did not know the identity of the bomber.
But a source told the newspaper Expressen. that they were '95 percent certain” that the car owner and the suicide bomber were the same person. They have linked the blasts and are investigating them as 'crimes of terror.'
Swedish Radio claim that police are searching the suspected terrorist’s apartment in Tranås.
Shoppers were lucky to escape a 'catastrophe' according to Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt .
He wrote on Twitter: 'Most worrying attempt at terrorist attack. Failed - but could have been truly catastrophic.'
Two people were slightly injured when the car - packed with gas cannisters - exploded at 4.50pm on Saturday.
The second blast was about 200 metres (650 feet) away. A man thought to be the bomber was found injured on the ground and later pronounced dead.
A bag filled with nails was found near him, according to Swedish news agency SVT. Witnesses said he had a large wound to his stomach as if something had exploded there.
Gabriel Gabiro, who heard the second blast from inside a watch store across the street, said: 'There was a man lying on the ground with blood coming out in the area of his belly, and with his personal belongings scattered around him
'It shook the store that I was in. Then there was smoke and gun powder coming in. I saw some people crying.'
The local news agency TT received an e-mail in Arabic and Swedish saying 'the time has come to take action.'
The e-mail referred to Sweden's silence surrounding cartoonist Lars Vilk's drawing of Muhammad as a dog and its soldiers in Afghanistan.
It warned: ' Our acts will speak for themselves. Now your children, daughters and sisters shall die like our brothers and sisters and children are dying.'
Punitive actions would continue 'as long as you do not stop your war against Islam, your degradation of the Prophet and your stupid support for the pig Vilks.'
Vilks has been the object of death threats and at least one plot to kill him.
In the message to his family contained in the audio file sent to the news agency the man referred to an earlier trip to the Middle East:
'I never went to the Middle East to work or earn money. I went there for Jihad,' he said.
The message concluded by urging 'mujahideen,' or Islamic fighters, to rise up in Sweden and in Europe, the news agency said.
TT said a similar warning had been sent to the Swedish Security Service SAPO.
Sweden has 500 soldiers serving with NATO's International Security Assistance force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, but their mandate only runs to January 1, 2011, and would need to be renewed by parliament for them to stay on.
On October 1, Sweden's intelligence agency Saepo said it had raised the alert level for attacks from low to elevated, putting it at three on an alert scale of five.
And the BBC's
Stockholm blasts: Sweden probes 'terrorist attack'
12 December 2010 Last updated at 17:54
Two explosions in Sweden's capital Stockholm are being investigated as a "crime of terror", officials say.
A car blew up in a busy shopping area on Saturday afternoon, followed moments later by a second explosion nearby.
Witnesses said a man found dead after the second blast had been carrying an explosive device. Two people were hurt.
Swedish PM Fredrik Reinfeldt condemned the attacks as unacceptable in an open society with a functioning democracy that respects different cultures.
"Our democracy functions well," he told a press conference. "Those who feel frustration or anger have the opportunity to express it without resorting to violence."
Lone operator?
Swedish security police have not yet released the dead man's name, although director of operations Anders Thornberg says they now have a clearer idea about him.
Stephen Evans
BBC News, Stockholm
Police are still trying to link these three events: the emails, the explosion in the car, and then the death of the man.
The prime minister and the security services are taking great pains to say: "Hold on a minute, let's not jump to conclusions, let's actually form those links".
But you've only got to surmise at the death of the man, through explosives that he was carrying, a short time after the explosions in the car, to assume there was a link between the two.
The bigger question is whether it was only him involved, whether he had set off the explosions in the car somehow, and then fled, either deliberately setting off the explosives on himself as a suicide bombing or accidentally setting them off.
They're also trying to work out whether there were more people involved in a conspiracy in Sweden and even more people involved in a conspiracy going outside the country.
"As far as we know it looks like he has been working for himself but we don't know, we have to make that really sure," he said.
"So we are investigating whether there could be more perpetrators. We don't know."
Swedish media have named a 28-year-old man of Iraqi origin as the suspected bomber.
Police are investigating a set of e-mails sent shortly before the blasts threatening attacks because Sweden had sent troops to Afghanistan.
Sweden has some 500 soldiers deployed in Afghanistan as part of the international military force.
Police are trying to work out whether the explosions were an isolated attack or part of a larger conspiracy, says the BBC's Stephen Evans in Stockholm.
The e-mails, with MP3 audio files in Swedish and Arabic, were sent to the Swedish security service and the TT news agency.
They called for "mujahideen" - or Islamist fighters - to rise up in Sweden and Europe, promising Swedes would "die like our brothers and sisters".
They also attacked the country for caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad drawn by Swedish artist Lars Vilks.
A man found dead near the site of the second explosion has not been named
"The mail was about one man," police spokesman Ulf Goranzon told a press conference on Sunday.
"He was not satisfied with developments in Sweden regarding [the fact] that we have military troops in other countries, that there had been protests and that there have been said bad things about the Prophet [Muhammad]."
Sweden has a reputation for openness and tolerance, but in recent years, tensions have risen, our correspondent says.
There has been resentment at immigration as the economy has stuttered, and some Muslims have grown more militant.
In September, the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats won 20 seats in parliament, taking 5.7% of the vote.
If confirmed as a suicide bombing, the attack would be the first of its kind in Sweden. However, Swedish citizens have been linked to suicide bomb plots abroad.
On Thursday, a court in Gothenburg found two Swedish citizens of Somali origin guilty of planning suicide attacks in Somalia.
The imam of Stockholm's main mosque, Sheik Hassan Mussa, said in a statement he deplored "all forms of attacks, violence fears and threats against innocent people, whatever the motive or pretext."
Twin blasts
Saturday's blasts struck as people were out Christmas shopping.
The car had contained gas canisters and there were a series of minor explosions, a spokesman told the BBC.
Unconfirmed reports in Sweden's Aftonbladet newspaper said the man found dead near the site of the second blast had been carrying pipe bombs, as well as a backpack full of nails.
Eyewitnesses saw him lying on the ground with blood coming out of his stomach.
Tweeting about the blasts, Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said a terrorist attack that could have been "truly catastrophic" had failed.
In November, Sweden raised its terror alert level from low to elevated because of a "shift in activities" among Swedish-based groups thought to be plotting attacks.
A security official said the threat level had not been raised as a result of Saturday's attacks.