Terror truck had a bomb on board
Driver set himself alight as he tried to trigger device 11-year-old schoolgirl was among the victims
THE terrorist who brought carnage to Sweden’s busiest shopping street could have claimed many more innocent lives had a home-made bomb he was carrying exploded, it was revealed last night.
Police discovered a crude improvised explosive device (IED) in the cab of the hijacked beer truck that careered along Stockholm’s equivalent of Oxford Street on Friday, killing four people and leaving 15 others seriously injured.
The killer – a father-of-four who had Islamic State propaganda on his laptop, according to local media reports – eventually rammed the vehicle into the Ahlens department store in Klarabergsgatan.
Witnesses reported seeing him set himself alight in a failed attempt to detonate his device – said to have been in a suitcase – before fleeing on foot. The killer had stolen the lorry just minutes earlier as its driver was making a delivery.
Last night a total of four people were being held in custody, including a 39-year-old Uzbek man, believed to have been driving the truck and living at a north Stockholm address. A 17-year-old arrested on Friday night was released.
Six more people were being questioned last night as part of an ongoing police operation in Varberg, about 15 miles south of the scene, following a number of raids on properties believed to be linked to the terrorist plot.
As more details of the sickening attack emerged yesterday, witnesses claimed the killer deliberately drove at young children and said a pram had been hurled into the air by the truck.
Last night local media reported that an 11-year-old was killed in Friday’s attack. According to reports, the girl, who was returning home from school when the attack began, had spoken to her mother just minutes before she was run over by the truck.
Glen Foran, an Australian tourist, said: ‘I turned around and saw a big truck coming towards me. It swerved from side to side. It didn’t look out of control, it was trying to hit people.’
Coming just a fortnight after the London attack, which killed five people and left dozens more injured, Swedish police said the tactics and background bore ‘clear similarities’ to those of Khalid Masood, who drove a hired car at speed, ploughing into people walking along the Westminster Bridge.
The suspect was captured after tip-offs from the public about a man who was confused and acting strangely in the suburb of Marsta, not far from the capital’s Arlanda airport. Sweden’s intelliwere gence agency revealed the man being questioned had been on the security services’ radar. Anders Thornberg, head of the Swedish Security Service, said: ‘The suspect didn’t appear in our recent files but he earlier has been in our files. He was known. The intelligence and security police were aware and said he was a marginal character. There is nothing that tells us that we have the wrong person.’
It has also been suggested that he posted jihadist propaganda on social media and had pictures of injured people following the Boston Marathon explosion in the US in 2013. Police said inquiries at a preliminary stage as they profile the suspect and investigate if he was part of a wider cell.
Police chief Dan Eliasson added: ‘We do not know if there were further persons in this act. We are not excluding that and we are working to see if others were involved.’
The attacker hijacked a Spendrups brewery lorry outside the Caliente Tapas Bar at 3pm on Friday and ploughed along Drottninggatan, the city’s largest pedestrian street, before crashing into the store. Witnesses described ‘bodies and blood everywhere’.
A Downing Street spokeswoman said: ‘The Prime Minister called Prime Minister Lofven of Sweden to express her condolences. She was clear that the UK stands firmly by Sweden’s side.’
‘The killer deliberately drove at young children’