Sweden's brush with terror after a suicide bomber on Dec. 11 detonated himself before executing a planned strike in central Stockholm has eroded lawmaker resistance to pushing through tougher surveillance laws. The opposition Social Democrats will no longer block a government proposal to let the Swedish Security Service use information from the National Defense Radio Establishment, said Morgan Johansson, chairman of parliament's justice committee. The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, which entered parliament for the first time in September elections, want lawmakers to address 'violent Islamist extremism' in an extraordinary session, party spokesman Martin Kinnunen said. 'Routines will be sharpened and that's something we will all have to accept,' said Bo Huldt, a professor in security policy at the Stockholm-based National Defense College, in a Dec. 13 interview. 'It may mean restrictions for us all regarding where we can move around, how many people can attend meetings or gatherings and more police presence at meetings.' Sweden has so far had laxer security laws than neighboring Denmark and Norway. The largest Nordic country has tried to balance maintaining democratic freedoms with adequate protection of its citizens, says Anders Thornberg, director of operations at the Swedish Security Service. After the weekend's bomb blasts, police will 'have to reconsider' this stance, he said. 'It is impossible in a Western society to know what everyone is doing,' Thornberg said in an interview. 'But of course, when this is solved, later on, we have to reconsider and evaluate when we see what we have done and if we can do something better.' Johansson, a former Social Democrat health minister, said laws may be changed to allow preventive action. The police need the tools to uncover 'potential perpetrators,' he told broadcaster SVT. Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt told SVT security police need 'to be ahead of the game, to prevent' terror attacks. Unlike neighboring Denmark, which became a target of Islamist anger in 2006 after its biggest newspaper published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, Swedish police until October had deemed the threat of any terrorist attack to be 'low.' Police then raised the alert level to 'elevated,' though they said there was no 'imminent' threat of any attack. Anders Hall, Head of Planning at the Ministry of Justice in Stockholm, said tracking religious extremists remains difficult, even after Sweden's security service raised its staff to 1,000 from about 800 in 2005. Sweden's laws protecting freedom of speech and freedom of association mean police follow 'tight regulations' when tracking demographic groups, Hall said in an interview. 'These regulations are part of the Swedish constitution and are firmly in place,' Hall said. There are almost 200 Islamist extremists in Sweden who assent to violent acts, the security service said in a report on its website Wednesday. While Islamist extremism and radicalization exist in Sweden and 'shouldn't be underestimated,' it's a 'limited phenomenon' that should be handled through preventive measures, the report said. Sweden has about 500 troops in Afghanistan, serving as part of the International Security Assistance Force. Swedish artist Lars Vilks drew anger from some Muslims after newspaper Nerikes Allehanda published one of his drawings that put Mohammad's head on a dog's body in 2007. Sweden's parliament, the Riksdag, passed a bill Wednesday extending the mandate for troops in Afghanistan to the end of next year after Reinfeldt's government coalition gained support from the Social Democrats in the vote. The mandate would have expired early next year. Shortly before the weekend's explosions, police and a local news agency received an e-mail with recordings in Swedish and Arabic from a man who said it was 'time to strike' because a 'war was being waged against Islam.' Sweden says it's coordinating its investigation of the blasts with Britain. In the recording, the suspect expresses anger against Vilks and the Afghan deployment. He apologizes to his family for lying about his trips to the Middle East, saying he went 'for Jihad.' Police on Dec. 13 said they were almost certain the suicide bomber was 28-year- old Taimour Abdulwahab. Britain's Guardian newspaper said Abdulwahab was an Iraqi-born Swede who obtained a Bachelors of Science in sports therapy from the University of Bedfordshire in 2004. 'This man has been very skillful in avoiding contacts with known terrorists,' Thornberg said. 'He has been very skilful in handling his preparations for this case so he hasn't shown up on our radar.' Sweden will get help from the FBI, which has sent seven experts on explosives to help probe the Dec. 11 blasts, police said on Dec. 13. Swedish police said Abdulwahab was probably targeting an area where he could hurt 'as many people as possible,' before a failure in his equipment led to early detonation. According to Huldt, 'even though things went well this time and nobody else was hurt, it's still a failure,' of police. - With assistance from Niklas Magnusson in Stockholm, Christian Wienberg in Copenhagen and Josiane Kremer in Oslo. 