92 dead in Norway carnage

 

Police said 85 people were known to have died in the shooting at an idyllic island near Oslo and seven in the bomb blast near the prime minister’s office. The overall death toll could reach 98 if some missing people proved to have died. — File Photo

OSLO: Norwegian police searched for more victims and a possible second gunman on Saturday after a suspected right-wing zealot killed almost 100 people in a shooting spree and bomb attack that have traumatised a once-placid country.
Police said 85 people were known to have died in the shooting at an idyllic island near Oslo and seven in the bomb blast near the prime minister’s office. The overall death toll could reach 98 if some missing people proved to have died.
The bloodbath was believed to be the deadliest attack by a lone gunman anywhere in modern times. It was also Norway’s worst violence since World War Two.
The suspect described himself as a fundamentalist Christian, said police, as evidence emerged that he had flirted with the political far-right.
“He has certain political traits that lean to the right and are anti-Muslim, but it is too early to say if that was the motive for his actions,” police chief Sevinung Sponheim told a television channel.
Anders Behring Breivik, a 32-year-old Norwegian, was arrested after Friday’s massacre of young people on a tiny forested holiday island that was hosting the annual summer camp for the youth wing of Norway’s ruling Labour Party.
Breivik was also charged for the bombing of Oslo’s government district that killed seven people hours earlier.
If convicted on the terrorism charges, he would face a maximum of 21 years in jail, police said.
Breivik had belonged to an anti-immigration party and wrote blogs attacking multi-culturalism and Islam, but police said he
had been unknown to them and that his Internet activity traced so far included no calls for violence.
Witnesses said the gunman, wearing a police uniform, went on a 90-minute shooting orgy on Utoeya island northwest of Oslo, picking off his prey unchallenged as youngsters scattered in panic or jumped in the lake to swim for the mainland.
A police team eventually arrived from Oslo, 30kms away, to seize Breivik after nearly 90 minutes of firing, the police chief told a news conference.
Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, sharing the shocked mood in this normally safe, quiet country of 4.8 million people, said: “A paradise island has been transformed into a hell.”
Labour Party youth member Erik Kursetgjerde described the panic on Utoeya when the gunman began shooting.
“I heard screams. I heard people begging for their lives and I heard shots. He just blew them away. I was certain I was going to die,” Kursetgjerde, 18, said outside a hotel in Sundvollen.—Agencies

Norway carnage suspect admits responsibility

A group of young people mourn for the victims of the July 22 shooting at a Norwegian Labour Youth League camp, on July 23, 2011 outside the Oslo Cathedral. – AFP

OSLO: The suspect in Norway’s twin attacks that killed at least 92 people admitted responsibility and said the carnage was long planned as the nation mourned victims of its worst violence since World War II.
Anders Behring Breivik, 32, was arrested for allegedly shooting at least 85 people dead at a youth Labour Party meeting on an island and killing seven more in a car bomb explosion which ripped through government buildings in Oslo.
“He admitted responsibility,” Behring Breivik’s lawyer Geir Lippestad told Norwegian media. While there was no official confirmation of the man’s identity, he was widely named as Anders Behring Breivik by local media.
“He feels that it was cruel to have to carry out these acts but that, in his head, it was necessary,” Lippestad said.
Oslo police spokeswoman Viola Bjelland told AFP on Sunday that the suspect was “cooperative.”
King Harald V, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and other ministers were to attend mass at Oslo cathedral on Sunday morning.
A rambling 1,500-page tract apparently written by Behring Breivik said he has been preparing the “martyrdom operation” since at least autumn 2009.
The Internet document – part diary, part bomb-making manual and part political rant in which he details his Islamophobia – explains how he set up front mining and farming businesses to prepare the attacks for which he was arrested on Friday.
“The reasoning for this decision is to create a credible cover in case I am arrested in regards to the purchase and smuggling of explosives or components to explosives – fertiliser,” the tract says.
As harrowing testimony emerged from the summer camp where scores of youngsters were mown down, Norway was struggling to understand how a country famed as a beacon of peace could experience such bloodshed on its soil.
“Never since the Second World War has our country been hit by a crime on this scale,” premier Stoltenberg told journalists as police searched for more bodies on the idyllic Utoeya island near Oslo.
“Many of those who have died were friends. I know their parents and it happened at a place where I spent a long time as a young person… It was a paradise of my youth that has now been turned into hell.”
The toll could rise further as the search continued for four or five people still missing from the island, aided by a mini-submarine and Red Cross scuba divers.
Blond-haired Behring Breivik described himself on his Facebook page as “conservative”, “Christian”, and interested in hunting and computer games like World of Warcraft and Modern Warfare 2, reports said.
He also described himself as director of Breivik Geofarm, an organic farm that may have given him access to chemicals used in the production of explosives.
Police spokesman Roger Andersen described the suspect as a “Christian fundamentalist”, adding that his political opinions leaned “to the right”.
The head of the populist right-wing Progress Party (FrP) confirmed Behring Breivik had been a party member between 1999 and 2006 and for several years a leader in its youth movement.
He stopped paying his subscription before ending his membership, according to the party.
Anti-fascist monitors meanwhile said Behring Breivik was also a member of a Swedish neo-Nazi Internet forum named Nordisk, which hosts discussions on topics ranging from white power music to political strategies for crushing democracy.
The attacks on Friday afternoon were western Europe’s deadliest since the 2004 Madrid bombings, carried out by al-Qaeda.
Friday’s attacks began with a car bomb which seared through landmark buildings including Stoltenberg’s office and the finance ministry. It is thought that the car-bomber then caught a ferry to nearby Utoeya island wearing a police sweater.
On arrival, he claimed to be investigating the bomb attack and began opening fire with an automatic weapon. The shooting spree lasted for an hour and a half.
Witnesses described scenes of horror among the more than 500 people attending the youth camp. Some who tried to swim to safety were even shot in the water.
Khamshajiny Gunaratnam, 23, said that people initially thought it was some kind of joke before she and her friends realised their lives were in danger.
“We ran and ran. The worst thing was when we found out the shooter was dressed as a policeman. Who could we trust then? If we called the police, would he be the guy (who) would come to our ‘rescue’?,” she wrote on her blog.
She and her friend Matti swam towards the mainland as the gunman fired into the water. After a while, a boat picked them up and brought them to safety.
“I have heard stories about people swimming over the lake, people hiding under stones and almost being shot at, so there are some terrible stories. We have agreed in our groups that we won’t talk about the most terrible because it goes only to the media,” said visibly shocked 17-year-old survivor Miriam Einangs.

92 dead in Norway carnage

 

Police said 85 people were known to have died in the shooting at an idyllic island near Oslo and seven in the bomb blast near the prime minister’s office. The overall death toll could reach 98 if some missing people proved to have died. — File Photo

OSLO: Norwegian police searched for more victims and a possible second gunman on Saturday after a suspected right-wing zealot killed almost 100 people in a shooting spree and bomb attack that have traumatised a once-placid country.
Police said 85 people were known to have died in the shooting at an idyllic island near Oslo and seven in the bomb blast near the prime minister’s office. The overall death toll could reach 98 if some missing people proved to have died.
The bloodbath was believed to be the deadliest attack by a lone gunman anywhere in modern times. It was also Norway’s worst violence since World War Two.
The suspect described himself as a fundamentalist Christian, said police, as evidence emerged that he had flirted with the political far-right.
“He has certain political traits that lean to the right and are anti-Muslim, but it is too early to say if that was the motive for his actions,” police chief Sevinung Sponheim told a television channel.
Anders Behring Breivik, a 32-year-old Norwegian, was arrested after Friday’s massacre of young people on a tiny forested holiday island that was hosting the annual summer camp for the youth wing of Norway’s ruling Labour Party.
Breivik was also charged for the bombing of Oslo’s government district that killed seven people hours earlier.
If convicted on the terrorism charges, he would face a maximum of 21 years in jail, police said.
Breivik had belonged to an anti-immigration party and wrote blogs attacking multi-culturalism and Islam, but police said he
had been unknown to them and that his Internet activity traced so far included no calls for violence.
Witnesses said the gunman, wearing a police uniform, went on a 90-minute shooting orgy on Utoeya island northwest of Oslo, picking off his prey unchallenged as youngsters scattered in panic or jumped in the lake to swim for the mainland.
A police team eventually arrived from Oslo, 30kms away, to seize Breivik after nearly 90 minutes of firing, the police chief told a news conference.
Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, sharing the shocked mood in this normally safe, quiet country of 4.8 million people, said: “A paradise island has been transformed into a hell.”
Labour Party youth member Erik Kursetgjerde described the panic on Utoeya when the gunman began shooting.
“I heard screams. I heard people begging for their lives and I heard shots. He just blew them away. I was certain I was going to die,” Kursetgjerde, 18, said outside a hotel in Sundvollen.—Agencies

Blast rocks central Oslo, Norway PM's office

By Reuters

Published: July 22, 2011

Police work near a burnt government building in Olso on July 22, 2011. PHOTO: REUTERS

OSLO: A huge explosion wrecked government buildings in central Oslo on Friday including Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s office, injuring several people, a Reuters journalist said from the scene.
The cause of the blast was unknown but the tangled wreckage of a car was outside one building and the damage appeared consistent to witnesses with that from car bombs. Police and fire officials declined comment on the cause.
The blast blew out most windows on the 17-storey building housing Stoltenberg’s office, as well as nearby ministries including the oil ministry, which was on fire.
Heavy debris littered the streets and a tall plume of brown smoke over the city centre.
A Reuters correspondent counted at least eight injured people. Norwegian news agency NTB said that Stoltenberg was safe in the blast, which happened around 3:30 p.m. (1330 GMT).
“It exploded, it must have been a bomb. People ran in panic. I counted at least 10 injured people,” said Kjersti Vedun, who was leaving the area.
NATO member Norway has sometimes in the past been threatened by leaders of al Qaeda for its involvement in Afghanistan. It has also taken part the NATO bombing of Libya, where Muammar Qaddafi has threatened to strike back in Europe.
However, political violence is virtually unknown in the country.
David Lea, Western Europe analyst, at Control Risks said: “It’s very difficult to tell what has happened.  There certainly aren’t any domestic Norwegian terrorist groups although there have been some al Qaeda-linked arrests from time to time.
“They are in Afghanistan and were involved in Libya, but it’s far too soon to draw any conclusions.”

Bomb kills 7 in Oslo, several killed in shooting

By Reuters

Published: July 22, 2011

A man helps a wounded woman evacuating a building after an explosion near government buildings in Norway's capital Oslo on July 22, 2011. PHOTO: AFP

OSLO: A bomb killed seven people in Norway’s capital Oslo on Friday and a gunman opened fire at a youth camp on an island, police said.
Police said they believed the bombing and the shooting were connected, but could not immediately confirm Norwegian media reports that several people at been killed at the youth camp.
A Reuters witness said several army soldiers had taken up position around the centre of the city.
With police advising people to evacuate central Oslo, apparently in fear of more attacks, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told Norwegian TV2 television in a phone call that the situation was “very serious”. He said that police had told him not to say where he was speaking from.
The bomb ripped through the main government building in the normally sleepy Norwegian capital in mid-afternoon, killing seven people, police said, and injuring many more.
“It exploded — it must have been a bomb. People ran in panic…I counted at least 10 injured people,” said bystander Kjersti Vedun, who was leaving the area of the blast in Oslo.
Shortly afterwards, a gunman opened fire at the island of Utoeya north-west of Oslo, where Stoltenberg’s Labour party youth section’s annual gathering was taking place.
Daily newspaper VG said on its website a man dressed as a policeman had been shooting wildly and had hit many people.
Norwegian commercial broadcaster TV2 said several people had been killed in the shooting spree.
There was no clear claim of responsibility, analysts said it was too early to draw any conclusions.
NATO member Norway has been the target of threats before over its involvement in conflicts in Afghanistan and Libya.
The attack came just over a year after three men were arrested on suspicion of having links to al Qaeda and planning to attack targets in Norway. It came also less than three months after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in a raid on his hideout in Pakistan.
A Reuters witness said he had seen soldiers taking up positions around central Oslo, while police said they feared there might be explosives at the youth camp.
Violence or the threat of it has already come to the other Nordic states: a botched bomb attack took place in the Swedish capital Stockholm last December and the bomber was killed.
The Oslo blast tore at the facade of the 17-storey central government building, blowing out most of the windows and scattering shards of metal and other debris for hundreds of metres (yards).
The blast scattered debris across the streets and shook the entire city centre at around 3:30 p.m. (1330 GMT). A Reuters witness saw eight people injured, one covered in a sheet and apparently dead.
The Reuters correspondent said the streets had been fairly quiet in mid-afternoon on a Friday in high summer, when many Oslo residents take vacation or leave for weekend breaks.
“This is a terror attack. It is the most violent event to strike Norway since World War Two,” said Geir Bekkevold, an opposition parliamentarian for the Christian Peoples Party.
The district attacked is the very heart of power in Norway, with several other key administration buildings nearby.
Nearby ministries were also hit by the blast, including the oil ministry, which was on fire. Nevertheless, security is not tight given the lack of violence in the past.
Political violence is virtually unknown in a country known for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize and mediating in conflicts, including in the Middle East and Sri Lanka.