Last weekend, “cozy, comfortable Sweden received a brutal reminder that it is both a participant and a target in the war against terrorism…The country’s domestic intelligence service announced that it was treating two explosions – one that killed a presumptive suicide bomber, and a car bomb that injured two people – as “an act of terrorism,” the Time magazine reported.
According to One India News, twin blasts occurred on Dec 11 in a busy street crowded with Christmas shoppers. Sources said that just before the blasts, a Swedish news agency received a message denouncing Sweden’s decision to send a 500-strong military contingent to Afghanistan and for its failure to condemn cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that were drawn by the Swedish artist Lars Vilks, and threatening deadly attacks.
The letter in Arabic and Swedish said, “Our acts will speak for themselves. Now your children, your daughters and your sisters will die as our brothers, our sisters and our children are dying,” Swedish news agency TT reported.
“Terror seeks to announce itself in order to invoke its intended result: Terror! For how many years though, have the Swedes been involved in Afghanistan? Well, as of 2008 they had as many as 290 personnel on the ground in the country. So a terror attack in response to Swedish troop presence there would be ill-timed to say the least. Besides, the Swedish contingent is intended merely as peace-keeping and its main purpose is to provide humanitarian aid. They have no mandate concerning Taliban forces other than to protect themselves and civilians within their sphere of influence,” Jim Avichouser, a former US intelligence Analyst, wrote in his article, Jihadist Attacks in Sweden More Than Meets the Eye?
After the attacks, William Petzall, a parliamentarian for the populist, anti-immigration Sweden Democrats party, wrote on his Twitter account, “I hate to say it but what did we tell you?”
According to Global Post, the National Democrats, a small, far-right party with a handful of seats on local government councils, have planned a rally in Stockholm against multiculturalism and terrorism. The party said it had warned of terrorists coming to Sweden in the past, only to have the warnings fall on deaf ears.
“The bombings in Stockholm were not a coincidence but part of a frightening development that will affect us all,” read a statement posted on the group’s website. “The biggest tragedy with this first terrorist attack in central Stockholm is that it’s an indication of what is about to happen to our once-safe Swedish nation.”
Hence the attack somehow justified the words and actions of the party members, who were criticized by many for their intolerance. In this light, the tragic incident was in the right place and in the right time: in the center of the city, right before Christmas, one of the main Christian holidays. This tragedy will incite the party leaders to further pursue their ideas that at some point could seem simply racist.
Omar Mustafa, president of the Islamic League in Sweden, said he fears the Saturday evening attack could undo the years of progress made by Muslims living in Sweden. “We will lose the most after this attack,” he said. “This will not help the level of Islamophobia.”
However, Avichouser gave another explanation to the event.
“I have a possibility that will most likely never be indicated by either Swedish authorities, nor offered by jihadists as a provocation. That is unless the Swedish Courts continue their efforts to extradite the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, from Britain to stand trial for Rape and sexual deviance. Who would have ever thought that wild eyed Islamic fundamentalists could be so subtle? Which back channel did they use to inform the Swedes that they should drop the case? And why would it be of any interest of theirs? Wikileaks has caused great embarrassment to United States diplomatic activities and shown vulnerability of U.S. Security measures. If Wikileaks founder is imprisoned in Sweden for Rape and other sexual deviance, he would no longer be able to carry out his vendetta against…America! The enemy of my enemy is my friend. If by some ruse they can cause the Swedes to drop the prosecution then the Brits might be compelled to release him to carry on his part of the fight against the United States,” he noted.