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Blast in Stockholm, Saturday
Photo: AP

UK mosque denounced Stockholm bomber for militancy

British police search house of man who died in one of the blasts he is believed to have triggered. 'He came to the attention of our committee for preaching extremist ideas,' secretary of Islamic Center in south England says

A man linked to two bomb blasts in the Swedish capital at the weekend had stormed out of a mosque in England several years ago and never returned after its leader challenged him over his radical ideas.

 

Taymour Abdulwahab, a Swedish national of Middle Eastern origin who died in one of the blasts he is believed to have triggered, attended an Islamic Center in the town of Luton, southern England, and also studied at the local university.

 

British police were searching a house in the town where he lived with his wife and children as part of an investigation into the bombings that injured two people in a busy shopping district in Stockholm on Saturday.

 

A section of the street was cordoned off and police loaded a blue Nissan Micra car with a child's seat in the back on to a truck and drove it away.

 

Farasat Latif, secretary of the center, told Reuters that Abdulwahab had spent three to four weeks at the mosque in 2006 or 2007 during the month of Ramadan.

 

"He was very friendly, bubbly initially and people liked him. But he came to the attention of our committee for preaching extremist ideas," Latif told Reuters.

 

'We never saw him again'

Latif said the centre's chairman took Abdulwahab aside and told him that his views were incorrect and a "distorted view of Islam". He was told not to air them again, but after initially agreeing, he resumed preaching his radical views.

 

"When we realized that he wasn't going to stop our chairman decided after the early morning prayer in front of the entire congregation to expose him and his views without naming him," Latif said.

 

"Taymor knew he was being spoken about and stormed out of the mosque in the middle of this and we never saw him again after that."

 

Sweden's chief prosecutor said on Monday that the man who died in the blast had been wearing an explosives belt and had probably been aiming to attack a crowded train station or department store when the device went off prematurely.

 

Shortly before that blast, a car containing gas canisters blew up in central Stockholm.

 

The town of Luton is home to a large Muslim community and has drawn the attention of Britain's security services before.

 

The suicide bombers responsible for the July 7, 2005 attack on London's transport system that killed 52 people met in Luton on the day of the attacks, abandoning their cars at the station to catch a train into the capital where they detonated their bombs.

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 12.13.10, 18:00
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