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LUTON, England — Embarrassed officials at the Luton Islamic Center on Tuesday defended their decision not to report Taimour Abdulwahab to police after his extremist views alienated worshippers in this small city north of London. That decision became important when Abdulwahab blew himself up Saturday on a busy street in Stockholm, injuring two people and endangering many more — and, once again focusing unwanted attention on Luton, a nondescript city of 200,000 with a large Muslim population. Abdulwahab, who died in the blast, did not attract much attention in Luton, but he did alarm mosque elders with fiery rhetoric

While this seemed painfully obvious the day of the attack, it now appears certain that Taimour Abdulwahab, the Stockholm man who attempted to detonate the car bomb and then a vest in the city, died from that most horrible affliction known to suicide bombers: premature detonation. And via The New York Times, we learn that he had been preparing to carry out mass murder in Stockholm for four years: Then, with the sound of the turn of a page, he addressed his wife and children. The man confessed that trips he had made to the Middle East were not for...

Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly showed little interest in religion as he was growing up in Sweden, channelling his energies into sport and partying. But after he began attending Bedfordshire University in Luton “everything changed” as he became a strict Muslim with increasingly extremist views, even naming his baby son Osama in honour of the al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden. On Saturday he blew himself up in a street full of Christmas shoppers in Sweden’s first suicide attack, after recording a message which promised to kill “your children, daughters, brothers and sisters”

And so it begins .......Sweden's first suicide bombing. Terroranschlag-Explosionen im Stadtzentrum von Stockholm/Explosioner i centrala Stockholm (video) Video hat tip Laura Email threat before Stockholm bombings called on mujahedin: "Now is the time to strike, don't wait any longer. Step up with whatever you have, even if it is a knife, and I know you have more than a knife" h/t Jihad Watch (English language Swedish newspaper) (Updated 3) A car exploded at the busy shopping street Drottninggatan in central Stockholm. Then there was another explosion some distance away and one man died. According to news agency TT, a man...

Two blasts rocked the center of Stockholm Saturday night in what Sweden's foreign minister called "a terrorist attack,"

A car explosion and what appeared to be a suicide attack injured two people, killed the apparent bomber, and caused panic among Christmas shoppers in Stockholm Saturday. The Swedish news agency TT said it had received an email warning with a threat to Sweden and its people ahead of the blasts. The agency said the threat was linked to Sweden's presence in Afghanistan, where it has a force of 500 soldiers, mainly in the north. "Now your children, daughters and sisters shall die like our brothers and sisters and children are dying," the news agency quoted the e-mail as saying.

Two explosions killed a man and injured two other people in a busy shopping area in central Stockholm, Swedish police have confirmed. Police spokesman Kjell Lindgren said it was possible that the dead man had blown himself up, but this had not been confirmed by investigators. Swedish media reported that he had killed himself with a bomb. Lindgren said police were also investigating whether other, unexploded bombs were on the scene. The TT news agency said it had received an email warning with a threat to Sweden and its people ahead of the Stockholm explosions. It said the threat was...

At least one person, reportedly a suicide bomber, was killed when two blasts went off Saturday in a busy shopping district in the Swedish capital of Stockholm. One of the blasts was thought to be related to a car bomb, in which two people were injured. Swedish media also reported that a suicide bomber blew himself up about 200 metres from the car. The man apparently had canisters on him and shouted in Arabic before the blast. Swedish media were also reportedly sent a threatening email before the blast, criticizing the role of Swedish soldiers in Afghanistan and urging Muslims...

First exploded a car at the busy shopping street Drottninggatan in central Stockholm. Then came another explosion some distance away and one man died. According to news agency TT, the man had blown himself to death. There was a bag on the ground filled with nails, according to newspaper Expressen. Alarm calls poured in to the Emergency Services from concerned residents about the explosions in central Stockholm on Saturday afternoon. But the initial info from the police was extremely unclear. First there was talk of two cars that exploded, later it proved to be just one... At Bryggargatan a man...

One person has been killed and at least one other hurt as two explosions rocked the centre of the Swedish capital, Stockholm, reports say. A car blew up near the busy shopping street of Drottninggatan, and another explosion hit nearby shortly afterwards, AP quoted police as saying. A man's body was discovered after the second blast, the agency reported. Swedish Aftonbladet newspaper showed images of a burning white car. The cause of the blasts is not yet known. Rescue services spokesman Roger Sverndal said the car which exploded had contained gas canisters, AP reported. A former AP worker, Gabriel Gabiro,...

The remains of a ship dating from the 1600s have been discovered outside the Grand Hotel in central Stockholm. The vessel was built with an almost completely unknown technology, delighting archaeologists. The planks of the ship are not nailed down, but sewn together with rope. The discovery was made by labourers close to the royal palace and in front of Stockholm's Grand Hotel during renovation works to a quay. "The discovery of the wreck is extremely interesting given the place where it was made. There was a naval shipyard on this spot until the start of the 17th century," Maritime...

A Stockholm hotel has launched a new pilot security system enabling guests to open their rooms, and even check in and out, with the help of their mobile phones, the participating companies said Tuesday. Starting this week the Clarion Hotel Stockholm provide a number of guests with telephones equipped with Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. The chosen clients will not only be able to reserve their rooms and receive confirmation on the devices, they will have the option of checking in even before arriving at the hotel and have their electronic room key ready in the phone when they get...

Which is preferable; 1. The advantages of easily climbing the social ladder in a poor nation (like cab drivers of India do) 2. The disadvantages of being poor and sticking to the device of "Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope" (like certain Mexican Americans do) 3. The predictability of being an average citizen going to an average mall in an average PC corner of the World (like most Stockholmers enjoy doing) I, sincerely, recommend viewing the clips linked to below.

Al Gore -- He did it again. Recently, Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore toured again. Or maybe he does that all the time. This time, he turned up in Gothenburg (Sweden) for the usual alarmist talk. In advance, all distinguished guests were politely advised to – if possible – use any form of public transportation to go to the event, in order to minimize CO2 emissions. Intriguingly, the Master of World Climate himself arrived in a rental car (with or without driver is unclear), from the airport, and subsequently left the engine running for the entire lecture. That is...

(The article and other links, see below, are all in Swedish. So far international media has not reacted. But it will not be long....) Julian Assange is wanted by Swedish police on probable grounds suspected of rape. Two women 20 and 30 years old contacted the police on Friday.

June 07, 2010 I SUPPOSE IF I SUGGESTED SUMMARY EXECUTION I WOULD BE CALLED "HARSH"? SNIPPET: "U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe Note that he didn't just lift a video and send it to Wikileaks. He also stole and released 260,000 classified US State Department diplomatic cables."

The Swedish Crown Princess Victoria is set to tie the knot with Daniel Westling, her former personal trainer, in the country's long-awaited royal wedding. More than 1,000 guests, including royalties from around the world, were expected to attend the ceremony in Stockholm Cathedral on Saturday. Security was tight in the capital, with 7,000 security personell deployed, the biggest security operation ever in the Scandinavian country. The future queen's relationship with Westling, a commoner from a small town, has been under close scrutiny since it got known to the public eight years ago.

Daniel Westling is keen to settle down and have kids with Crown Princess Victoria after the pair wed next month, the future prince said in a joint interview with his fiancée published in Saturday. "In 10 years time, I hope we will have created a family," Westling told the Svenska Dagbladet daily in response to a question on what he hoped his life would look like in a decade. Asked how many small princes and princesses he'd like to raise, Westling answered: "A number, although that is not the kind of thing one can really predetermine." The 36-year-old luxury gym...

A chef at a Stockholm restaurant rushed out of his kitchen on Thursday afternoon and threw a meat cleaver at a departing thief as his restaurant was robbed for the second time in a week. The robbery took place at 2pm at a restaurant in Hässelby Villastad in west Stockholm. Two masked robbers held staff at knifepoint and forced them to hand over all the cash in the till. "Apparently the chef's meat cleaver struck one of the robbers in the back, but they were able to disappear from the scene. The same restaurant was robbed a week ago and...

"The environment here is good, it's beautiful, it's clean," summed up Anna Elig, a 37 year-old Stockholm dweller pushing her eight-week-old daughter's carriage through the city centre on a cool, sunny afternoon. "All the moms and dads who are on parental leave go out for walks around the city ... This wouldn't work in Paris," she chuckled, strolling along the broad walkway near the sparkling water. With 40 percent of the inner city composed of green spaces, the Baltic Sea archipelago city seems a natural place to begin the European Commission's Green Capital initiative. "I wasn't surprised," said Katarina Eckerberg,...