TERROR TRUCK HAD A BOMB ON BOARD
THE terrorist who brought carnage to Sweden’s busiest shopping street could have claimed many more innocent lives had a homemade 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 main shopping street on Friday, killing four 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 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 20km south of the scene.
This followed a number of raids on properties believed to be linked to the terrorist plot.
As more details of the 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 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 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 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 intelligence agency revealed that the man being questioned had been on the security services’ radar but had been considered a minor figure.
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.’
It has also been suggested that he posted jihadist propaganda
‘Nothing tells us that we have the wrong person’
on social media. Police said inquiries were 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.’