POLICE IN SWEDEN have said that two explosions in the centre of Stockholm yesterday evening which killed one person, and gravely injured two more, were a terrorist attack that could have proven “catastrophic”.

The two explosions yesterday, one of which struck the busy shopping street of Drottinggatan at about 4:50pm local time while it was crowded with Christmas shoppers, were deemed to have “failed” by the country’s foreign minister, Carl Bildt.

Bildt said he found the attempt “most worrying”, however, and said the effects “could have been truly catastrophic”.

News agency TT said it was given an email warning about the impending blasts ten minutes before the explosions, though it was not told where the explosions would actually take place.

The statement – taking the form of audio recordings in Swedish and Arabic – criticised Sweden for having 500 troops in Afghanistan, and said that the Swedes’ “children, daughters and sisters will die like our brothers and sisters and children are dying”.

It also made reference to a Swedish cartoonist, Lars Viiks, which depicted the Prophet Muhammed as having the body of a dog.

The first attack took the form of a car bombing, while another man was found dead following a second explosion later; witness reports claimed that the second man was wearing a Palestinian scarf before detonating himself.

Police authorities said it was “too early”, however, “to tell if the dead man is connected with some kind of network.”