Stockholm explosions kill 1, injure 2

STOCKHOLM - 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.

Stockholm Police spokeswoman Petra Sjolander said a car exploded near Drottninggatan, a busy shopping street in the center of the city. Shortly afterward, a second explosion was heard higher up on the same street, and a man was found injured on the ground. He was later pronounced dead.

Sjolander said it was unclear what caused the second explosion and whether the two blasts were linked, but said a police bomb squad has been sent to the site.

Ten minutes before the blasts, Swedish news agency TT received an e-mail saying "the time has come to take action." According to the news agency, the e-mail referred to Sweden's silence surrounding artist Lars Vilk's drawing of Muhammad as a dog and its soldiers in Afghanistan.

Police said they were aware of the e-mail, which had also been addressed to Sweden's security police, but couldn't immediately confirm a link to the explosions.

Two people were taken to the hospital with light injuries. It was not immediately clear in which explosion they were hurt.

Sweden - which has so far been spared any large terrorist attacks - raised its terror threat alert level from low to elevated in October because of "a shift in activities" among Swedish-based groups that could be plotting attacks there.

The security police said then that the terrorism threat in Sweden remained low compared to that in other European countries, and no attack was imminent.