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STOCKHOLM SUICIDE BOMBING

TAIMOUR ABDULWAHAB

Man held in the UK over Stockholm suicide bomb

Police in Scotland have confirmed that a man has been arrested in connection with the suicide bombing in Stockholm in December.

Man held in the UK over Stockholm suicide bomb

A 30-year-old man was arrested shortly after 6am on Tuesday as part of an operation that began in Sweden, according to Strathclyde police.

“The arrest in Scotland is a result of the Scottish police investigation and a cooperation between Scotland and Sweden within the framework for international legal assistance, as well as a good cooperation between prosecutors and the police authorities,” Swedish intelligence agency Säpo said in a statement.

“The investigation so far shows that there may be a connection between the arrested person and the terror crime in Stockholm on December 11th, something

the continued investigative work in Scotland will have to show,” the statement

added.

Strathclyde police confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that the man was arrested at 6.05am in the Whiteinch area of Glasgow, adding that he was not a UK citizen.

“This has resulted in a 30-year-old foreign national being arrested under the Terrorism Act. The operation centres on a previous incident in Sweden.”

A police spokesperson confirmed that the arrest was made after intelligence gathering which indicated that he had been involved in assisting terror activities outside of Scotland.

There was no direct threat against Scotland, the police confirmed.

Taimour Abdulwahab, a Swedish citizen who lived in the British town of Luton with his wife and three children, narrowly missed wreaking carnage among Christmas shoppers when he blew himself up next to Stockholm’s busiest pedestrian street on December 11th.

He was carrying a cocktail of explosives and is believed to have mistakenly set off a small explosion that killed him before he could carry out what appears to have been a mission to kill “as many people as possible,” a Swedish prosecutor said days after the attack.

An Islamist website, Shumukh al-Islam, posted a purported will by Abdulwahab which said he was fulfilling a threat by Al-Qaeda in Iraq to attack Sweden.

Shortly before the explosions, Säpo and the TT news agency received an email with audio files in which Abdulwahab is heard telling “all hidden mujahedeen in Europe, and especially in Sweden, it is now the time to fight back.”

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CSN

Suicide bomber lived off Swedish student aid

Stockholm suicide bomber Taimour Abdulwahab received more money from the Swedish state than from his terrorist financiers, including a 54,000-kronor ($8,550) payout made after he bled to death in his failed terror bid.

Suicide bomber lived off Swedish student aid

All told, Abdulwahab received nearly 750,000 kronor ($119,000) from the Swedish National Board for Student Aid (Centrala studiestödsnämnden, CSN), the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper reports.

The figure is more than ten times the estimated $8,000 sum cited in a Scottish court’s conviction last year of Nesserdine Menni, who was sentenced to seven years in prison for funding Abdulwahab’s December 2010 attack in Stockholm.

The revelations come from Swedish author Mats Ekman, the author of a book on Iraqi intelligence activities in Sweden during Saddam Hussein’s rule of Iraq.

Ekman examined all of Abdulwahab’s student aid applications and payments, and discovered the Stockholm suicide bomber frequently sent certificates to CSN verifying his coursework.

“I would like to thank CSN and wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,” Abdulwahab wrote at the end of one of his letters to the agency.

According to Ekman’s research, Abdulwahab first applied for student aid in the late 1990s and used the money he received from the Swedish agency to fund his studies in Luton, England, the place where the Iraqi-born Swede is believed to have became inspired by militant Islamism.

It remains unclear what happened to the 54,000 kronor sent by CSN to Abdulwahab two days after he died in the December 2012 suicide bomb attack in a busy shopping district in central Stockholm.

After Abdulwahab’s death, CSN subsequently wrote off 670,000 kronor of his student loan debt.

Prosecutor Agnetha Hilding Qvarnström continues to investigate the suicide bomb attack but refused to speculate on how much money Abdulwahab may have spent or whether Swedish student aid money may have been used to buy materials used in the bomb attack.

Hilding Qvarnström is expected to present her investigation some time in the spring.

The revelations may also lead to changes in how CSN deals with outstanding debts when someone dies with outstanding dues.

“This has been a real eye-opener for us,” CSN spokesman Klas Elfving told DN, adding that the payment was authorized on December 9th, prior to Abdulwahab’s death.

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