STOCKHOLM — A day after two explosions struck central Stockholm, killing the man suspected of being a suicide bomber and wounding two other people, investigators began to focus on the possibility that the person responsible was a disaffected Iraqi-born Swede who had attended college in Britain.  A woman stood at the corner of Bryggaregatan and Drottninggatan street in Stockholm, where a blast took place on Saturday.  Reports in British and Swedish newspapers, citing government sources, identified the man as Taimour al-Abdaly, a 28-year-old Sunni Muslim whose family moved to Sweden from Baghdad in 1992. Attempts by The New York Times to confirm the reports independently were not immediately successful, and Swedish officials declined to comment, saying the bomber’s identity was part of the investigation.  But the suspect’s possible link to Britain was reinforced Sunday night when the Metropolitan Police in London said officers were searching a property at an address in Bedfordshire, the county in which Mr. Abdaly is believed to have attended college. A spokesman said the search was made “in connection with the incidents in Stockholm.”  Sweden’s prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, told reporters at a news conference that an investigation led by the Swedish intelligence agency Sapo was still working to establish links among the two explosions, the dead man found with blast wounds to his abdomen and the threatening messages sent to the Swedish news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyra shortly before the explosions.  Mr. Reinfeldt, leader of a center-right coalition, said the police were “treating this as a terrorist action,” but he appealed to Swedes not to jump to “the wrong conclusions” or allow preliminary reports about the explosions to stir fresh tensions over Sweden’s growing immigrant population, including about 450,000 Muslims. Sweden’s “openness is worth giving ourselves the time to get to the bottom of this,” he said.  “Our democracy functions well,” Mr. Reinfeldt said. “Those who feel frustration or anger have the opportunity to express it without resorting to violence.”  The blasts have caused widespread consternation in Sweden. The country has long prided itself on having created a tolerant and peaceful society at home, and on having avoided involvement in the upheavals that have ravaged much of Europe in modern times, including World War II. Until Saturday, it had escaped the bombings that have hit several other European capitals since the 9/11 attacks.  Although officials withheld the name of the suspected bomber, the director of operations for the security police, Anders Thornberg, told reporters that investigators “now have a clearer idea about him.” Reports in Swedish newspapers said the man’s identity had been traced through the license plate of a car used in the blasts, and Mr. Thornberg hinted that he had acted alone.  The first blast came from a car parked near the busy shopping street of Drottninggatan shortly before 5 p.m. on Saturday, and appeared to involve gas canisters found in the wreckage. A second blast came minutes later, about 200 yards away. A man’s body, with blast injuries to his abdomen, was discovered after the second explosion.  The newspaper Aftonbladet reported on its Web site that the dead man had been carrying pipe bombs and a backpack full of nails. But the sequence left many unanswered questions. Among them was why the suicide bomber, if that is what he was, had detonated his bomb in an area with relatively few people, when he could have chosen any one of the crowded shops along Drottninggatan, a pedestrian mall hundreds of yards long.  Other questions focused on the messages received by several Swedish news organizations. Dan Skeppe, an editor at Tidningarnas Telegrambyra, said the agency had received recordings attached to an e-mail minutes before the blasts. The recordings, obtained by The New York Times, were in Arabic, Swedish and English. In one, a man, speaking in fluent and scarcely accented English, addressed himself “to Sweden.”  He read from what was apparently a prepared script, and said that Swedes had brought “these actions” on themselves. The message singled out Lars Vilks, an artist threatened repeatedly with death since his drawing of the Prophet Muhammad was published in 2007, and demanded that European nations withdraw their soldiers from Afghanistan.  Then, with the sound of the turn of a page, he addressed his wife and children. The man confessed that trips he had made to the Middle East were not for business, but for “jihad.”  John F. Burns reported from Stockholm, and Ravi Somaiya from London. Christina Anderson contributed reporting from Stockholm.
Swedenâs intelligence service began to focus on ominous recordings sent to media and the police and on a disaffected Iraqi Swede as it investigated two explosions from Saturday.