Suicide bomber who killed himself in Stockholm terrorist blasts studied at British university

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 6:54 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.

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Terror: A firefighter with a foam hose battles with the car after it was set ablaze by the bomber

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..

Looking for love: Suspected bomber Taimour Abdulwahab Al-Abdaly used Muslim dating sit Muslima.com (left) in his search for a second  wife

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.

Aftermath: The body of a suicide bomber - thought to be Taimour Abdulwahab Al-Abdaly - lies in a Stockholm city centre street covered with a blanket following two blasts yesterday afternoon

The suicide bomber: Named as Taimour Abdulwahab Al-Abdaly

His favourite pages on Facebook included ‘Yawm al-Qiyaamah’, the Islamic ‘Day of Ressurection’. And a picture posted on his page shows an apocalyptic scene with the world in flames.

'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.

Ablaze: A firefighter attempts to put out the fire following a car bomb explosion in Stockholm

Firemen pour in foam to douse the flames of the burning car in Stockholm

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 suspected suicide car bomber lies under a blanket while a police forensic officer removes debris from the around the body

Sealed off: The scene where two separate bomb explosions hit the centre of Stockholm

Hunting for clues: A police forensics officer takes a mobile phone picture of what appears to an identity card at the scene of the bomber's body

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.