This Article is From Dec 12, 2010

Sweden: 1 killed, 2 injured in twin blasts

Sweden: 1 killed, 2 injured in twin blasts
Stockholm: Two explosions in central Stockholm killed one person and injured two on Saturday, causing panic among Christmas shoppers.

Police spokeswoman Petra Sjolander said a car exploded near Drottninggatan, a busy shopping street in the centre 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.

"We don't know yet if the two locations are connected. We are doing everything we can to try and figure that out," Kjell Lindgren, Swedish Police spokesman said.

Two other people were taken to the hospital with lighter injuries, but it was not immediately clear in which explosion they were hurt.

Rescue services spokesman Roger Sverndal said the car that exploded contained gas canisters.

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

Gabriel Gabiro, a former Associated Press staffer, heard the explosion from inside a watch store across the street and saw smoke coming from the area where the man was lying.

Gabiro said the blast was "quite loud" and he saw people running from the site.

Sweden - which has so far been spared of any large attacks - raised its security 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 that extremist threat in Sweden, a Scandinavian country, remained low compared to that in other European countries, and no attack was imminent.
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