Stockholm suicide bombing

[Darlica]

You might have heard about this on the news. We have had our first Islamic suicide bomber in Sweden.
First: L and I are fine, we where both at home at the time for the explosions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11978389 
This article is a bit out dated by now, but it is at least a readable one.

Fortunately it seems like the bomber was an amateur as only one of the six pipe bombs he was carrying exploded and it seems to have gone of prematurely as he was very close to but not on one of Stockholm's busiest streets.

The bomber died at the detonation but only two bystanders was injured, however several people who witnessed the whole thing was severely chocked.

I don't want to think of what would have happen if he had manage to detonate all of the bombs  in one of the near by malls/stores (think Debenhams) or in the underground...
The city was filled with Christmas shoppers, it would have been a massacre and a stampede.

Sadly I've been waiting for this since the London bombings. I think next time we won't be so lucky.

Ironically the 11 Dec is also a day the Swedish neo-nazi movement is on their feet's marching in Salem near by Stockholm, celebrating the memory of a (skinhead) teenager who got killed in the aftermath of fight (10 years ago this year)... Which meant that most of the regions police force was actually on duty this day but busy elsewhere. I wonder if he planned with that.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I'm sorry. Good thing he failed though, right? And I'm really, really glad you and L are ok.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I'm relieved that you guys are OK.
--
Stupid and sad. It's worrisome how much damage some few determined (and deranged) individuals can make, not so much to their targets but to their alleged cause and to those close by blood, race or belief. And specially to the freedoms of everybody else.

These kinds of acts only benefit those who believe in absolute authority, be it from a deity or from the state, and the later ones are the quickest to take advantage of it.

Sad and stupid indeed.

[Aggie]

    Glad to hear you two are OK, and that it was not as bad as it could have been.


I'm somewhat surprised (and thankful) we haven't seen this happen in Canada yet.  A few plots have been foiled, mind you.

[pieces o nine]

I was wondering about you two since I saw the news -- good to know you are OK. How horrible when people want to cause such pain and destruction for no real reason.

   

[Sibling DavidH]

Sorry it's spread to Sweden, too, but at least he didn't manage to do a lot of damage.  That seems to happen pretty often, I'm glad to say - bungled explosive attacks.

Now they're going through his house in Luton, Bedfordshire, close to by boyhood home.  He had a wife and children there.  Poor, silly, deluded bastard.

[Lindorm]

What I find quite chilling is that now that we have had a, like David H described him, a poor deluded bastard with beard and dark skin, blow himself up with a confused farewell letter using badly understood islamist rethoric, people and media are screaming blue murder and calling for more police, more control, more surveillance etc etc etc, ad nauseum.

However, Sweden has a recent 25-year history of ideologically motivated violence, including political assasinations, car bombings, shootings, theft of military weapons and explosives from army stockpiles and arson -all commited by the extreme right and neo-nazi movements. Some of those who have been murdered, had their homes burnt down despite them pleading to the arsonists that there were little children inside the building, who have been brutally assaulted and beaten are friends and colleagues active in the same trade union as I am.

Now, what has the respones from the "official Sweden" been to these 25 years of violence?
More or less nothing, except in a case where the aryan race warriors trying to rob a bank to finance their struggle managed to kill a few police officers. Some have been convicted, but not to any large extent. A lot of "political commentators" in mainstream media actively pursue the line that since leftis activists sometimes wear balaclavas to demonstrations, they are also terrorists and virtually undistinguishable from the neo-nazis, thus implicitly deserving what's coming to them.

Police instructors in Swedish police forces have been using training scenarios during training of new officers where the suspects have names such as "Nigger Niggerson" and descriptions such as "Nigger, though not of the blue-black variety, more of the muddy shit-coloured variety". The repercussions? A written reprimand. And a howl of outrage in the police union newspaper, since the disciplinary reprimand now meant that they, the poor police officers, had to live in a climate of fear for reprisals and informants and were no longer able to freely discuss important matters during training sessions.

And now, we have "Sverigedemokraterna" in the parliment -the somewhat-polished, somewhat-acceptable face of racist fearmongering, masquerading as a party that promotes traditional values and cares about the family. They have cleaned up their act compared to their beginnings as the Bevara Sverige Svenskt movement -Keep Sweden Swedish. For example, they no longer sing old nazi songs and new racist ones publically -only when they are on private functions for party functionaries and volunteers. And they have purged some of their more colourful members .-like the one who had sexual affairs with a fourteen-year-old girl, set live sheep on fire for fun and had an extensive business going selling steroids. The ones they have kept, including as parlimentary representatives, only have several convictions for assault and battery of their wives, minor drug convictions, tax evasion and other minor sundries. But hey, boys wil be boys? And they are really concerned about our traditional family values and morals!

So where is the real danger? Does the threat necessarily wear a long beard and turban? And if this charade of ignorance continues, how long until the divisions in our society produce some really ugly violence?

[Griffin NoName]

So where is the real danger? Does the threat necessarily wear a long beard and turban?

I wouldn't have given the bomber a second glance - he looked totally normal to me in the photo in our press. I am ashamed he comes from Britain though. I am glad he was the only death.

[Lindorm]

The guy doesn't come from Britain, though.

He was born in Bagdhad to Jordan parents, who later emigrated to Sweden. He grew up and went to school in Tranås, a small southern Swedish bible belt town that's about as exciting as lukewarm water. This is also where he spent the largest part of his life. He did live in Luton for a few years, though -and got married and had children in Britain, as well as children in a later second marriage in Sweden.

So, essentially, his adolescence and most of his formative years were spent in small-town rural middle class Sweden -hardly a classic breeding ground for extremism as traditionally defined.

[Griffin NoName]

So, essentially, his adolescence and most of his formative years were spent in small-town rural middle class Sweden -hardly a classic breeding ground for extremism as traditionally defined.

But where was he radicalised? Quite possibly Luton.

I find it quite alarming how people get radicalised. Scary.

I've seen it in another area of life - "spirituality". There was a course I did, which did me a great deal of good, helped me a lot, but some people believed every word that was said so literally and took the "ideas" too far - became ludicrously "spiritual". Spirituality taken to extreme can be quite horrid.

[Swatopluk]

Not meant as a joke!
Small town living has driven people to insanity on occasions. But usually it's kids bored to death that get out the matches with no ideology involved.

[Sibling DavidH]

This guy was latterly a radical in Luton, and was effectively expelled from his mosque for it.  One would guess that the radicalisaton took place in Luton, which is well known for it.  It's not a nice town, believe me, and the many Muslims who used to work in the car industry now have nothing to do.

[Swatopluk]

I only know of Luton from a joke in a Corries song (The Folker) indicating that it is really end of the line

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

So, essentially, his adolescence and most of his formative years were spent in small-town rural middle class

I'd dare to say that here in the States small town rural is almost a precondition for right wing radicalization...

[Sibling DavidH]

I only know of Luton from a joke in a Corries song (The Folker) indicating that it is really end of the line.

Don't know the Corries' version.  If it's about 'just a come-on from a groupie down in ...', then it should be Clifton (Bristol), not Luton.  It's a Fred Wedlock song, y'see.

---------------------------------------------------

I'd dare to say that here in the States small town rural is almost a precondition for right wing radicalization...

But Jihad is nurtured in a different soil.  That bloke Abu Hamza spent a year in Luton and still goes there a lot.