Norway Bombing

[denuseri]

A bomb ripped open buildings in the heart of Norway's government Friday, and a man dressed as a police officer opened fire at an island youth camp connected to the ruling party. At least seven people were killed in the blast and nine more in the camp shootings, the peaceful nation's worst violence since World War II. Oslo police said 9 or 10 people were killed at the camp on Utoya island, where the youth wing of the Labor Party was holding a summer camp for hundreds of youths. Acting Police Chief Sveinung Sponheim says a man was arrested in the shooting, and the suspect had been observed in Oslo before the explosion there.
Sponheim said police were still trying to get an overview of the camp shooting and could not say whether there was more than one shooter.
Aerial images broadcast by Norway's TV2 showed members of a SWAT team dressed in black arriving at the island in boats and running up the dock. Behind them, people stripped down to their underwear swam away from the island toward shore, some using flotation devices.
In Oslo, the capital and the city where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, the bombing left a square covered in twisted metal, shattered glass and documents expelled from surrounding buildings.
Most of the windows in the 20-floor high-rise where Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and his administration work were shattered. Other buildings damaged house government offices and the headquarters of some of Norway's leading newspapers.


Stoltenberg was working at home Friday and was unharmed, according to senior adviser Oivind Ostang.
Oslo University Hospital said 12 people were admitted for treatment following the Utoya shooting, and 11 people were taken there from the explosion in Oslo. The hospital asked people to donate blood.
The attacks formed the deadliest day of terror in Western Europe since the 2005 London bombings, which killed 52 people.
Sponheim wouldn't give any details about the shooting suspect, who he said was dressed in a police uniform when he opened fire into a crowd of youths.
A spokesman for Stoltenberg's Labor Party, Per Gunnar Dahl, said he couldn't confirm that there were fatalities at Utoya, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Oslo. The party's youth wing organizes an annual summer camp on the island, and Stoltenberg had been scheduled to speak there Saturday.
"There are at least five people who have been seriously wounded and have been transported to a local hospital," Dahl said. He said the shooting "created a panic situation where people started to swim from the island" to escape.
Police blocked off roads leading to the lake around Utoya. An AP reporter was turned away by police about 5-6 kilometers from the lake, as eight ambulances with sirens blaring entered the area.
In Oslo, police said the explosion was caused by "one or more" bombs, but declined to speculate on who was behind the attack. They later sealed off the nearby offices of broadcaster TV 2 after discovering a suspicious package.
Ian Dutton, who was in a nearby hotel, said the building "shook as if it had been struck by lightning or an earthquake." He looked outside and saw "a wall of debris and smoke."
Dutton, who is from New York, said the scene reminded him of Sept. 11 — people "just covered in rubble" walking through "a fog of debris."
"It wasn't any sort of a panic," he said, "It was really just people in disbelief and shock, especially in a such as safe and open country as Norway, you don't even think something like that is possible."
Public broadcaster NRK showed video of a blackened car lying on its side amid the debris. An AP reporter who was in the office of Norwegian news agency NTB said the building shook from the blast and all employees were evacuated. Down in the street, he saw one person with a bleeding leg being led away from the area.
The explosion occurred at 3:30 p.m. (1330 GMT), as Ole Tommy Pedersen stood at a bus stop 100 meters (yards) away.
"I saw three or four injured people being carried out of the building a few minutes later," Pedersen told AP.
At Utoya, Emilie Bersaas, identified by Sky News television as one of the youths on the island, said she ran inside a school building and hid under a bed when the shooting broke out.
"At one point the shooting was very, very close (to) the building, I think actually it actually hit the building one time, and the people in the next room screamed very loud," she said.
"I laid under the bed for two hours and then the police smashed a window and came in," Bersaas said. "It seems kind of unreal, especially in Norway. This is not something that could happen here, this is something you hear about happening in the U.S."
Another youth at the camp, Niclas Tokerud, stayed in touch with his sister through the attack through text messages.
"He sent me a text saying 'there's been gunshots. I am scared (expletive). But I am hiding and safe. I love you,'" said Nadia Tokerud, a 25-year-old graphic designer in Hokksund, Norway.
As he boarded a boat from the island after the danger had passed he sent one more text: "I'm safe."
The United States, European Union, NATO and the U.K., all quickly condemned the bombing, which Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague called "horrific" and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen deemed a "heinous act."
"It's a reminder that the entire international community has a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring," President Barack Obama said.
Obama extended his condolences to Norway's people and offered U.S. assistance with the investigation. He said he remembered how warmly Norwegians treated him in Oslo when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.
The U.S. Embassy in Norway warned Americans to avoid downtown Oslo.
The attacks come as Norway grapples with a homegrown terror plot linked to al-Qaida. Two suspects are in jail awaiting charges.
Last week, a Norwegian prosecutor filed terror charges against an Iraqi-born cleric for threatening Norwegian politicians with death if he is deported from the Scandinavian country. The indictment centered on statements that Mullah Krekar — the founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam — made to various news media, including American network NBC.
Terrorism has also been a concern in neighboring Denmark since an uproar over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad six years ago. Danish authorities say they have foiled several terror plots linked to the 2005 newspaper cartoons that triggered protests in Muslim countries. Last month, a Danish appeals court on Wednesday sentenced a Somali man to 10 years in prison for breaking into the home of the cartoonist.
Europe has been the target of numerous terror plots by Islamist militants. The deadliest was the 2004 Madrid train bombings, when shrapnel-filled bombs exploded, killing 191 people and wounding about 1,800. A year later, suicide bombers killed 52 rush-hour commuters in London aboard three subway trains and a bus. And in 2006, U.S. and British intelligence officials thwarted one of the largest plots yet — a plan to explode nearly a dozen trans-Atlantic airliners.
In October, the U.S. State Department advised American citizens living or traveling in Europe to take more precautions following reports that terrorists may be plotting attacks on a European city. Some countries went on heightened alert after the May 2 killing of Osama bin Laden.

The above was taken from a report made by NILS MYKLEBOST to the Associated Press

[Losalt]

Right now the confirmed causalities are 84 killed on Utøya and 7 in the Oslo blast.
They're still searching both places and might find more bodies.
They've arrested a ethnically norwegian male with a norwegian citizenship who is believed to be a christian conservative right wing extremist with anti-Islamic views and who is very hostile to a multi-cultural society.
No one would have though that anyone in this country could think of doing something like that and we're all more or less in shock at the moment.
Our high level of democracy is suppose to reduce the danger of anyone doing anything like this with local motives and our relatively benign (is that the right word?) foreign policy with up to 1.1% of the GDP in development aid and stuff like that is suppose to reduce the chance of anything of foreign origin.
Still we're hit with this...

[Losalt]

Oh and for an idea of the scale of this for us.
11/7 causalities: 2,977, population in USA the year before 281,421,906
22.07.2011 so far 91 of a pop of est 4,7 mill this year...

This don't mean that 11/7 isn't big, but it gives you an idea of how completely shocked we are.

[delish]

My heart goes out to all who were effected by this personally. I'm so sorry your country was dealt such a blow, Losalt. What a horrifying situation!

[denuseri]

By Associated Press writer KARL RITTER with contributions from Bjoern H. Amland in Oslo:


The 32-year-old suspected of gunning down scores of young people at a summer camp and setting off a bomb in downtown Oslo that killed at least seven is a mystery to investigators: a right-winger with anti-Muslim views but no known links to hardcore extremists. "He just came out of nowhere," a police official told The Associated Press.
Seven people were killed in the bombing at the prime minister's office and at least 85 were slain in the shooting spree on the island, police said Saturday. The warned the death toll could rise further as many people remained missing.
Public broadcaster NRK and several other Norwegian media identified the suspected attacker as Anders Behring Breivik, a blond and blue-eyed Norwegian who expressed right-wing and anti-Muslim views on the Internet. Police have the suspect in custody but have not confirmed his identity.
Norwegian news agency NTB said Breivik legally owned several firearms and belonged to a gun club. He ran an agricultural firm growing vegetables, an enterprise that could have helped him secure large amounts of fertilizer, a potential ingredient in bombs.
But he didn't belong to any known factions in Norway's small and splintered extreme right movement, and had no criminal record except for some minor offenses, the police official told AP.
"He hasn't been on our radar, which he would have been if was active in the neo-Nazi groups in Norway," he said. "But he still could be inspired by their ideology."
He spoke on condition of anonymity because those details had not been officially released by police. He declined to name the suspect.
Neo-Nazi groups carried out a series of murders and robberies in Scandinavia in the 1990s but have since kept a low profile.
"They have a lack of leadership. We have pretty much control of those groups," the police official said.
Breivik's registered address is at a four-story apartment building in western Oslo. A police car was parked outside the brick building early Saturday, with officers protecting the entrance.
National police chief Sveinung Sponheim told public broadcaster NRK that the gunman's Internet postings "suggest that he has some political traits directed toward the right, and anti-Muslim views, but whether that was a motivation for the actual act remains to be seen."
He regularly posted on a Norwegian right-wing site called Document.no in 2009 and 2010, the editor of the site Hans Rustad said.
"He writes mostly about what Americans call the cultural war; focused on immigration, demography, identity, and politics in the broader sense," Rustad wrote on the site on Saturday.
"His main enemy is not Muslims, but multiculturalists and what he calls cultural marxists."
A Facebook page under Breivik's name was taken down late Friday. A Twitter account under his name had only one Tweet, on July 17, loosely citing English philosopher John Stuart Mill: "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests."
Police were interrogating the man, first at the scene of the shooting, and later at a police station in Oslo.
"It's strange that he didn't kill himself, like the guys that have carried out school shootings," the police official told AP. "It's a good thing that he didn't because then we might get some answers pointing out his motivation."
He said there did not appear to be any links to international terrorist networks. The attack "is probably more Norway's Oklahoma City than it is Norway's World Trade Center," he said referring to the 1995 attack on a federal building in Oklahoma City by domestic terrorists.
Investigators said the Norwegian carried out both attacks — the blast at the prime minister's office in Oslo and the shooting spree at the left-wing Labor Party's youth camp — but didn't rule out that others were involved.
Authorities were questioning witnesses about reports of a second gunman, but the police official said it wouldn't be impossible for one man to carry out the attacks on his own.
"He's obviously cold as ice. But to get close to the government is easy. The streets are open in that area," he said.

[IAN 2411]

I think Losalt that 91 deaths are a tragedy in any country but I do understand what you are saying. My sympathies go out to the parents and families, it is a great tragedy and has been felt all around the world.

I have been saying now since the twin towers that any gathering of any kind is a target for radicals, terrorists and complete nutters. Since the beginning of the 60s the IRA blew up public houses full of civilians and troops to get their message of hate over. The fanatics in States, [Twin towers] and the UK, [London underground] [Canary Wharf] used these places of high population as a political statement, and don’t think for one minute that it will ever end. There is no country in the world that is safe from this kind of violence whether big or small.

I have told my girls when going clubbing to look out for this kind of thing, but they laugh thinking it would never happen. For this kind of atrocity to take place it only needs a spark of madness, and it does not have to have anything to do with race, religion or politics. A broken engagement could ignite the fire in anyone that is already on the edge and unstable.

I will still be telling my girls next week to take care and still worrying about them while they are in the clubs, because I woke up to the dangers 20 years ago. The easiest targets are always the unexpected.

I believe the death toll is now 92 and could go up to 98, senseless killing???

Be well IAN 2411

[thir]

There is no country in the world that is safe from this kind of violence whether big or small.

I have told my girls when going clubbing to look out for this kind of thing, but they laugh thinking it would never happen. For this kind of atrocity to take place it only needs a spark of madness, and it does not have to have anything to do with race, religion or politics. A broken engagement could ignite the fire in anyone that is already on the edge and unstable.

I will still be telling my girls next week to take care and still worrying about them while they are in the clubs, because I woke up to the dangers 20 years ago. The easiest targets are always the unexpected.

Be well IAN 2411

I understand your feelings, but how can anyone look out for bombs or people with guns?? You cannot go round in daily life looking out for attacks.

Should we stop going to things where there are many people? Stop flying or taking the train or the bus?

If we do that, they have surely won.

Already democratic freedoms are so restricted that you might say that if they haven't won, they are well on the way. We are doing the work for them with such laws.

[Losalt]

93 killed so far, someone died in hospital today...
And I believe thir is right and so does both the prime minister, the leader of the youth organization of the labor party and the king.
We will not sacrifice our democracy and our values on the altar of security and fear.

[IAN 2411]

thir....Losalt...

I think you misunderstand me, i never meant that we should change the way we live because of these outrages. I only meant the there is now no safe haven anywhere in the world. As i said even the most hollowed of places is a potentential target. The UK never changed its way in all the years that the IRA was using the mainland as a target, and in the free world i dont expect anyone else to. There is no harm in being wise and being careful.

Be well IAN 2411

[leo9]

thir....Losalt...

I think you misunderstand me, i never meant that we should change the way we live because of these outrages. I only meant the there is now no safe haven anywhere in the world.

There never was. In the early 20th century people were scared of Nihilist bombers. In the 16th century the fear figure was the "murder-burner", the arsonist. (In cities of tarred wood and thatched roofs you didn't need a bomb to create a massacre, just a torch.) Greek and Norse legends include tales of people who were possessed by gods or demons and ran wild killing everyone in sight. There is a minute but real possibility that the next person you meet will be looking to kill you, for political or religious or psychiatric reasons. You either live with it, or stay home and hide under the bed.

[Thorne]

There is a minute but real possibility that the next person you meet will be looking to kill you, for political or religious or psychiatric reasons.
The reasons don't really matter. They are all insane to one degree or another. Politics and religion only give some people an excuse, in their own minds, to kill strangers. Or even friends and family. It's only when the insanity becomes institutionalized, as in religion or governments, that the reasons begin to make a difference, and even then only to those who are doing the killing. The dead don't care. The survivors care only for revenge (or justice, if you prefer.)

[thir]

thir....Losalt...

I think you misunderstand me, i never meant that we should change the way we live because of these outrages.


Ok



I only meant the there is now no safe haven anywhere in the world. As i said even the most hollowed of places is a potentential target. The UK never changed its way in all the years that the IRA was using the mainland as a target, and in the free world i dont expect anyone else to. There is no harm in being wise and being careful.
Be well IAN 2411

Then again, the UK, along with many othere countries, have now changed their laws, quite considererably, in ways that do threthen to kill democracy while, in my opinion, not putting much of a brake on terrorists.

One wonders why now, since, as you say, it wasn't done in all the time of the IRA.

[denuseri]

Actually if Im not mistaken thir is right in that the UK did indeed change several of its security policies many times through out its entire history depending on which administration was in charge and what had been happening at the time conserning how long people could be detained and what type of questioning one could use, and whom one could hold and why and how much force could be used in different situations for prevention or reciprocity up to and including even what levels of observation and freedoms were allowed over the general public its movments and such etc.

I wonder if Norway will be changing their own again soon?

[IAN 2411]

Actually if Im not mistaken thir is right in that the UK did indeed change several of its security policies many times through out its entire history depending on which administration was in charge and what had been happening at the time conserning how long people could be detained and what type of questioning one could use, and whom one could hold and why and how much force could be used in different situations for prevention or reciprocity up to and including even what levels of observation and freedoms were allowed over the general public its movments and such

No, that is not quite correct denu, It did change many times in the 14 years the Labour Party were in power. It first changed after 9/11 and the start of the Afghanistan war. The dithering MP’s couldn’t make up their mind whether to stick with the human rights laws or stick their fingers up at them. Then the Tories came to power and they have been diluted a little.

Be well IAN 2411

[denuseri]

It changed many times before that, (I did say through out it's entire history btw being the history of Great Brittian) not only from the advent of the Jacobites on, but many many other times as well including during the 70's several times over in relation to different policies concerning the activities of the IRA and occupation of Northern Ireland.

The question however is will Norway change it's own policies ?

[IAN 2411]

93
We will not sacrifice our democracy and our values on the altar of security and fear.



The question however is will Norway change it's own policies?

I think Losalt has already answered that question, and I think he has answered for all of us in every country. In the end you can only be so secure without being totally restricted in movement. There is no security plan that covers the possibility of insanity or spur of the moment attacks.

Be well IAN 2411

[denuseri]

Well its one thing for an individual to say they wont do something and for a country's leader to make such an affirmation of principles to the public...yet it doesn't change the fact that many governments feeling the need to fix something do indeed change things anyway.

For instance:

According to the AP:

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg vowed Wednesday that his countrymen will fight back against the twin terror attacks that have rocked the nation with "more democracy" and promised an independent commission to investigate the massacre and help survivors and relatives cope with the aftermath.

Police have come under close scrutiny over how they handled the bombing in Oslo's government quarter and the shooting spree on an island youth camp that together left at least 76 people dead, in particular how long it took them to reach the island.
The commission is important "to be able to clear up all questions about the attack in order to learn from what happened," including what worked well and what didn't, and to offer a full report to survivors and victims, Stoltenberg told reporters.
Parliament agreed to earmark an unspecified amount of money to cover some of the funeral costs, he said. A national memorial will also be created.
"Nothing of what we today have decided to do will bring back those that lost their lives on Utoya and in the government district, but we hope that these measures, and other things we will do later on, will help make a difficult time a little bit less difficult," he said.
Stoltenberg struck a defiant note Wednesday, insisting that the brutal killings would not change Norway's tolerant way of life — and would only encourage further openness. Norwegians will defend themselves by showing they are not afraid of violence and by participating more broadly in politics, he told reporters at an earlier press conference.
Anders Behring Breivik, an ardent opponent of multiculturalism, has confessed to the attacks, saying he was trying to save the Western world from Muslim colonization.
"It's absolutely possible to have an open, democratic, inclusive society, and at the same time have security measures and not be naive," Stoltenberg said.
Stoltenberg defended freedom of thought even if includes extremist views such as those held by the 32-year-old Breivik.
"We have to be very clear to distinguish between extreme views, opinions — that's completely legal, legitimate to have. What is not legitimate is to try to implement those extreme views by using violence," he said.
"I think what we have seen is that there is going to be one Norway before and one Norway after July 22," he said. "But I hope and also believe that the Norway we will see after will be more open, a more tolerant society than what we had before."
The vicious attacks in the placid, liberal country have left Norwegians appalled and shaky, but determined to move forward. Some government workers were planning to return to work in their offices in the buildings where the bomb blasts blew out most windows.
Denmark said Wednesday a 43-year-old Danish woman, Hanne Balch Fjalestad, had died in the attacks, marking the first confirmed foreign death. She was working as a first aid medic at Utoya island. She leaves behind four children, including a 20-year-old daughter, Anna, who survived the island shooting.
Police also released 13 new names of victims, one of whom, 51-year-old Anne Lise Holter, worked at the prime minister's office in finance administration and was among the eight people killed in the government quarter bombing.
Others on the list were all killed in the rampage at the Labor Party youth retreat. They include 14-year old Sharidyn Svebakk-Bohn from Drammen, west of Oslo, as well as police officer Trond Berntsen — Crown Princess Mette-Marit's 51-year old stepbrother. Berntsen was shot when providing security on the island.
Earlier, the leader of Norway's Delta Force defended the special operations team, saying the breakdown of a boat didn't cause a significant delay in efforts to reach the island.
Police have come under close scrutiny over how long it took them to reach the island after first reports of shots being fired at the island youth camp Friday. Although the island is only about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the Norwegian capital, police needed 90 minutes to get to the scene.
A media helicopter was already hovering over the island when police arrived. Marius Arnesen, a cameraman for broadcaster NRK who shot video of the massacre at Utoya island, told The Associated Press that his helicopter arrived some time between 6 p.m. and 6:10 p.m. Police say got to the island at 6:25 p.m.
Police were already grappling with the wide damage inflicted in the downtown government quarter. When word of the shooting came, police drove rather than take a helicopter because the crew of the sole chopper available to them was on vacation. Then the first boat they tried to take to the lake island broke down.
Anders Snortheimsmoen told reporters the team immediately jumped into another, better boat. He said his team arrived at the harbor at the same time as local police and the boat mishap caused no delay.
Once they arrived, Snortheimsmoen told the AP, his officers nearly shot Breivik because they feared he might be wearing an explosive belt. The decision was made by a "very narrow margin," he said.
Justice Minister Knut Storberget praised the team at the news conference, saying it had helped "limit the tragedy."
Norwegian media are suggesting that police knew Breivik's identity even before they reached the island, tracing him through a rental car company from which he rented the panel van in which the bomb was planted.
Dag Andre Johansen, Scandinavian CEO of Avis car rental company, told the AP that Breivik had rented two vehicles, including a Volkswagen Crafter van. He said police contacted the company after the bombing and got Breivik's identity confirmed. But he declined to say whether that contact came before Breivik was arrested on the island.
Many in Oslo felt a new twinge of worry on Wednesday morning when parts of the capital's rail and bus complex was evacuated because of a suspicious abandoned suitcase. Police later said no explosives were found and that the evacuation order had been lifted. The Norwegian news agency NTB said a bus driver turned in the alarm after seeing a passenger leave the suitcase and walk into the station at a fast clip.
Tens of thousands of Norwegians have rejected the suspect's anti-immigrant rhetoric, laying thousands of flowers around the capital in mourning. Entire streets were awash in flowers, and Oslo's florists ran out of roses.

[IAN 2411]

I think a lot of things that go on after an attack like this one are only cosmetic. The people wish to see the government doing something possitive, but if you are on a reasonably high state of alert already, then there is not a lot more you can do without restricting your civil leberties. This outrage will be on everyones mind for a long time and the bomb disposal teams will be on over time with suspect bombs, as happened in the UK with the IRA attacks. However like the UK, the mind of the people working and living near the bomb centre will start to forget, while keeping that little more alert. I dont think anyone will get over a shooting like that, Hungerford UK is still in shock at the loss through a mad man shooting.

Be well IAN 2411