Norway Terror Attack Included Assassination Attempt On Former Prime Minister

Anders Breivik is more than a little chatty when it comes to spilling details about his evil plot to engage in mass murder, using the bombing of government offices in Oslo as a diversion from his main plan to murder dozens of kids attending a youth camp organized by the Norwegian Labour Party. More than 90 people were killed in the dual attacks, and Breivik intended that one of the targets was the former Prime Minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland. On top of the mass murder, he wanted to throw assassination of public officials in for good measure in hopes of sparking a Christian war.

"Anders Behring Breivik had plans to come to Utoeya (island) while Gro Harlem Brundtland was visiting on Friday, but claims under interrogation that he was delayed," Aftenposten reported on Monday, citing unnamed sources.

The newspaper said the 32-year-old right-wing fanatic wanted to "hit Gro".

Brundtland, a Harvard-educated physician, has been a champion of social democratic policy approaches worldwide, and served as president of the World Health Organisation from 1998 to 2003.The report said Breivik made the remarks under questioning by police in advance of a court hearing on Monday.

He invokes Christianity all while those who knew him didn't find him particularly political or religious. They seem to suggest that inadequacies over finding a girlfriend spurred him to engage in to this descent to hell, using a melange of Unabomer and other assorted pseudo-political rhetoric to somehow justify his intentions to murder as many people as possible.

The Norwegian justice system will have a hard time trying to come to grips with this mass murder - the maximum sentence that can be handed down under these circumstances is 21 years; they cannot sentence Breivik to have consecutive sentences. Norway will have to decide whether that particular law needs to be adjusted going forward, but that too will be cold comfort to his victims' families.

Norwegian police have responded to accusations that they were delayed in properly responding to the events unfolding on the island.

The first report of the July 22 shooting was received at 5:27 p.m. by police in the Nordre Buskerud district in which Utoeya is located and the gunman was apprehended at 6:27 p.m. by the Emergency Response Team from Oslo, two minutes after they arrived on the island, spokesman Henning Holtaas said by phone. Officers in Oslo were dealing with the aftermath of a related bomb attack in the capital as the island shooting began.

“I completely understand that for those caught in the line of fire as well as for their relatives the response time felt long,” Chief of Police Sissel Hammer of Nordre Buskerud Police District said in a statement yesterday. “However, I ask for understanding of the fact that the deployment of armed police personnel will always require time. Personnel need time to be equipped and armed as well as transported to the scene.”

The twin attacks on Utoeya and in Oslo killed as many as 93 people, with most of the victims shot on the island, about 40 kilometers (28 miles) from the capital by car. The police will have to answer questions about the speed of their response to events on Utoeya, Dagbladet, an Oslo-based newspaper, reported.

The Emergency Response Team had already been assembled in Oslo following the bomb attack two hours earlier, which claimed the lives of seven people, and travelled to the island by car because the only helicopter available to the police was not equipped for the task, Holtaas said. Police in Norway do not routinely carry firearms.

“Considering the equipment that they needed, it was easier as they sat in their cars, just to drive directly out there,” Holtaas said. Norway’s only police helicopter is used for monitoring and surveillance and “doesn’t have the capacity in that helicopter to bring personnel.”

Breivik’s rampage on the island lasted 90 minutes, during which he is alleged to have called on the youths to come to him for police protection, before shooting them point-blank. He was wearing a fake police uniform.

UPDATE:

None of what he did happened in a vacuum. He had influences, and trying to claim that this was done because he was inadequate to get the attentions of women ignores what he actually wrote - and what he's actually saying.

He believed it to the point of murdering nearly 100 people.
He intended to murder many more - including assassinating a former PM.

This isn't just about inadequacies around women. This is about buying into a worldview that sees the "other" as the enemy - and the current scapegoat is Muslims - all Muslims. In another day and age, it would be the Jews. Or those who aren't blonde and blue eyed.

It's all the same kind of recycled hatred, and we ignore this hate at our own peril.

UPDATE:
While the ultimate death toll still isn't known, the identities of some of the victims are being released. Among those killed is a stepbrother to Norway Crown Princess Mette-Marit, Trond Berntsen. He was gunned down by Breivik trying to protect others as a security guard. The investigation has also gone to France, where law enforcement was searching the home of Breivik's father:

Meanwhile, French police are searching the suspect's father's home Monday. About a dozen officers surrounded the house in Couranel in southern France, entering and leaving at irregular intervals. The house is cordoned off, and reporters do not have access.

The regional gendarme service confirmed the house was that of Anders Behring Breivik's father but would not comment on the search operation. News reports have said Breivik's father, Jens Breivik, has not been in touch with his son in many years.

Norway Awakens To Horrifying Details About Terror Attacks

91 people are now confirmed killed in the combined bombings in the heart of Oslo and at a Labour Party youth camp taking place on Utoya Island. The overwhelming majority of those killed are teenagers attending the camp. Norwegian soldiers have secured Oslo and are assisting in securing the Utoya locations as the search for victims continues.

The horrifying events in Oslo and then at a youth camp have shocked Norwegians and everyone is struggling to find out who did this and why. A suspect is in custody, and while law enforcement hasn't officially indicated the name, multiple Norwegian news outlets have indicated that the suspect is Anders Behring Breivik.

While police have not officially named him, Norwegian television and newspaper reports have identified the suspect as 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik, of Norwegian origin.

A picture is emerging, gleaned from official sources and social media, of a right-wing Christian fundamentalist who may have had an issue with Norway's multi-cultural society.

Norwegian and international news outlets have run photographs of a blond man with blue-green eyes and chiseled features, dressed in a preppy style.

A victim who was shot during the attack at the youth camp on Utoya island told CNN Saturday that he had seen pictures of Breivik taken from what is believed to be his Facebook page and shown on NRK and TV2. The victim said he recognized the man from the news reports as the gunman.

Breivik is a member of the Oslo Pistol Club and has three weapons registered in his name, according to leading Norwegian newspaper VG, citing Norway's official weapons register. They are a Glock pistol, a rifle and a shotgun, VG reported.

Police aren't sure whether he had worked alone or had help.

Other reports indicate that he owned and/or operates a farm, and that he had placed an order for six tons of fertilizer on May 4. That isn't out of the ordinary for a farm, but such materials can be used to make a fertilizer bomb and could inflict the kind of damage seen in Oslo. Expect police to test bomb residue to determine the composition of the bomb and whether it used the kind of fertilizer that Breivik had obtained or had access to. Reports this morning indicate that it was indeed a fertilizer bomb.

Yet, no one can quite understand what would drive this person or person to murder so many children in such a brutal fashion.

Survivors indicated that the gunmen yelled that all those teens must die:


Other survivors played dead to avoid being killed.

UPDATE:
Perhaps the scariest thing is that he doesn't appear to have done this with help - he acted alone. He managed to build and detonate a bomb, and then murder so many people on his own.

That's perhaps the worst case scenario for law enforcement the world over.

It's one thing to try and disrupt terror cells (someone can talk). But someone who has access to the materials as Breivik did (fertilizer for the bomb) and the willingness to act on whatever deranged worldview he had; and it seems that he was opposed to the Norwegian government's immigration position; and can carry out this attack on his own is a new and dangerous dimension that will make it more difficult down the road for security officials around the world.

UPDATE:
The Daily Mail is reporting that Breivik was a poster on a Swedish Nazi website.

It has emerged that the man at the centre of the attack is also a member of a Swedish Nazi forum which encourages attacks on government buildings.

The revelations were revealed by Swedish newspaper Expo who claim Anders Breivik is part of 'Nordisk' which has 22,000 members and focuses on political terrorism.

The 32-year-old who has been identified as the suspect by Norwegian media is also said to have anti-Muslim viewed.

Police are searching the blond, blue-eyed man's flat in Oslo and are still searching the surrounding waters, where people fled the attack.

It has also just been revealed that there is a new bomb alert in the capital and police have reportedly sealed off an area called Solli Plass, an area close to the royal palace.

80+ Killed In Norway Terror Attacks

At least 80 people, many of them teenagers at a youth camp organized by the Norwegian Labour Party, are dead after a bombing in Oslo and at a nearby island retreat. A right wing extremist, Anders Behring Breivik, is in custody in connection with both incidents.

After the shooting the police seized a 32-year-old Norwegian man on the island, according to the police and Justice Minister Knut Storberget. He was later identified as Anders Behring Breivik and was characterized by officials as a right-wing extremist.

The acting chief of police, Sveinung Sponheim, said Mr. Breivik, who is not known to have any ties to Islamic extremists, had also been seen in Oslo before the explosions. The police and other authorities declined to say what the suspect’s motivations might have been, but many speculated that the target was Mr. Stoltenberg’s liberal government.

“The police have every reason to believe there is a connection between the explosions and what happened at Utoya,” the police said. They said they later recovered explosives on the island.

Mr. Breivik had registered a farm-related business in Rena, in eastern Norway, which authorities said allowed him to order a large quantity of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, an ingredient that can be used to make explosives. Authorities were investigating whether the chemical may have been used in the bombing.

As the investigations continued, the police asked people to leave the center of Oslo, stay indoors and limit their cellphone use. They also said they would initiate border checks.

The attacks bewildered a nation better known for its active diplomacy and peacekeeping missions than as a target for extremists.

In Oslo, office workers and civil servants said that at least two blasts, which ripped through the cluster of modern office buildings around the central Einar Gerhardsen plaza, echoed across the city in quick succession around 3:20 p.m. local time. Giant clouds of light-colored smoke rose hundreds of feet as a fire burned in one of the damaged structures, a six-story office building that houses the Oil Ministry.

Other outlets are putting the death toll at least 87.

The CSM is reporting that Brevik had posted nationalistic and anti-immigrant positions online, and I'm sure that much more information will be forthcoming about whether he had accomplices.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the Norwegians on this terrible day.

Developing: Bombing in Oslo Norway and Shootings At Youth Camp; Multiple Casualties Reported

Multiple casualties are being reported with at least two confirmed dead in a massive explosion in downtown Oslo, Norway, near the Prime Minister's office.

Oslo police said the explosion was caused by a bomb, the NTB news agency said.

A Reuters correspondent counted at least eight injured people.

The blast blew out most windows on the 17-story 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 rose over the city center. The tangled wreckage of a car could be seen near the blast site.

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.

Government minister Hans Kristian Amundsen told the U.K.'s BBC News that there were believed to be a number of people trapped in the building.

"We are trying to stay focused, and we are focused, on the rescue operation," he told the BBC.

Reports of shootings at a Labor Party Youth Camp are now confirmed with at least 5 casualties. Allegedly, someone dressed in a police uniform opened fire on crowds at a youth camp near Oslo.

This may be related to the bombing in Oslo, but no way to know for sure.

Based on the speculative reporting, it seems that some terror group was attempting to carry out attacks against the Prime Minister and major political targets. Police operations are ongoing at a youth camp.

UPDATE:
According to Midnight Watcher:

“30 mins ago, a man posing as a police officer has fired several shots at a Labour Party Youth convention, over 700 people attending, on Utøya, an island west of Oslo. It has been reported that the man in a police uniform identified himself as a police officer when boarding the boat to the island. He said it was a ‘routine control’ in connection with the terrorist bombing earlier in Oslo city.

The shooter has not been caught as yet and people are hiding where they can. The police have sealed off the island.

It has not been confirmed that the Oslo bombing and Shooter incidents are connected.

Multiple casualties are reported and there's quite a lot of confusion.

UPDATE:
The two incidents may be related to each other, particularly since the youth camp had a political component and that leading politicians were expected to speak at various points during the current and upcoming week.

Around 1,000 young Labour supporters gathered at Utøya last Wednesday for a five-day summer camp. Prime Minister Stoltenberg, Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland were due to make appearances over the course of the week, newsinenglish.no reports.

The BBC reports that Stoltenberg was not supposed to be on Utøya today, but that the former Prime Minister was due to speak on the island today.

Norwegian journalist Ketil B Stensrud tweeted this afternoon that there had been “reports of shots fired and people ‘swimming’ away in despair” at the location.

The Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg confirmed that a situation was developing at Utøya, but did not give any details: ”There is a critical situation at Utøya, and several ongoing operations as we speak,” Stoltenberg said.

There's lots of speculation around whether Libya or pro-Libyan terror groups are involved in the actions. Thus far no one has come forward to claim responsibility for the attacks.

UPDATE:
It looks like that there were at least two significant explosions, although the second explosion could have been a secondary blast and not the result of a bomb:



UPDATE:
Via BBC, very bad news about the events on Utøya:

1848:
Eyewitness Andre Scheie told NRK: "There are very many dead by the shore... There are about 20-25 dead." Mr Scheie also said he saw people dead in the water at the camp.
1844:
An eyewitness has told the Norway national broadcaster NRK that he saw more than 20 bodies at the Labour Party youth camp in Utoeya.
1936:
Mr Stoltenberg tells Norwegian broadcaster NRK: "Co-workers have lost their lives today... It's frightening. That's not how we want things in our country.

The shooter involved in the youth camp shootings has apparently been taken into custody. While the BBC reports that no one has come forward to claim responsibility, although other reports indicate that a new group calling itself Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami has claimed responsibility.

A terror group, Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami, or the Helpers of the Global Jihad, issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, according to Will McCants, a terrorism analyst at C.N.A., a research institute that studies terrorism. The message said the attack was a response to Norwegian forces’ presence in Afghanistan and to unspecified insults to the Prophet Muhammad. “We have warned since the Stockholm raid of more operations,” the group said, according to Mr. McCants’ translation, apparently referring to a bombing in Sweden in December 2010. “What you see is only the beginning, and there is more to come.” The claim could not be confirmed.

Norway is a member of the NATO alliance and has a small fighting contingent in Afghanistan. It was one of several countries named by Ayman al-Zawahri, the leader of Al Qaeda, as potential targets for attack. In 2006, Norwegian newspapers reprinted Danish cartoons that angered Muslims by lampooning Muhammad. Norway has also historically been a frequent participant in peacekeeping missions and a host for diplomatic talks, including the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians. The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by a committee of the Norwegian Parliament.

Muslim leaders in Norway swiftly condemned the attacks. “This is our homeland, this is my homeland; I condemn these attacks and the Islamic Council of Norway condemns these attacks, whoever is behind them,” said Mehtab Afsar, secretary general of the Islamic Council of Norway.

Authorities indiciate that these were coordinated attacks, including targeting the Prime Minister's offices.