Booms and headshots in central Oslo

[Cain]

Seven people confirmed dead.  Looks like a car bomb went off, though that cannot be verified.  There have been shootings as well.  One man has been arrested.

No credible claims of responsibility so far, although a New York based news agency reported some jihadist groups claimed responsibility.  Rumour being floated around Norwegian media so far is that a "disturbed loner" was responsible.

Edit: the gunman was dressed as a policeman.  Police say 10 died in the shootings (which targeted a youth camp on Utoya), 7 in the bombing, 2 injured in the latter.  Explosion took place near government buildings and major newspaper headquarters.

Edit 2: the camp on Utoya was for the ruling Labour Party's youth cadre.  The suspect has been described as a Nordic-looking male.

Edit 3: the government buildings attacked were the oil ministry and the office of the Prime Minister.  The bombing took place first, and the suspect apparently said he had been sent to Utoya, when questioned before the shooting, to provide additional security.  This heavily suggests Utoya was the main target, especially since the suspect was described as being "heavily armed", ie; with several weapons, and the Oslo bombing was a feint to provide an opportunity to gain access to the camp.

[Triple Zero]

Wow, Norway.

So there's two sites, the government buildings in Oslo, and the camp of the Norway labour party's youth division on Utoya.

Wtf is going on??

[Cain]

Justice Ministry has confirmed the arrested man is Norwegian.  This is clearly an attack against the ruling Labour Party.

[Triple Zero]

Crazy. I don't know the Norwegian labour party, but being the labour party, they can't be that bad ...

[Cain]

They're the major party in the ruling Red-Green alliance.  They're your usual first world Labour Party - social democracy, turned a little to the right and against immigration.

Britain has offered intelligence assistance - although it's not clear whether Britain actually has anything useful.

I've noticed, looking at Norwegian polling data, that the far right has almost no organizational presence in Norway.  The far-right are usually a good suspect when it comes to terrorism against left-wing targets, and with a lack of any sort of political presence in the country, it could be that frustrations among someone of that persuasion spilled over into political violence /speculation.

[Telarus]

I caught something on G+ about 2 things that happened 'right before this'.

1) Norway making noises about pulling out of Libya.

2) Norway advocating _for_ Palestinian independence.


Any comment on that observation?

[Nephew Twiddleton]

The more im thinking about this the more im thinking it might be a random nut or a right wing extremist. If norway is a low priority target the right may have just been laying low while the govt was distracted with al qaeda and giving off the impression that theywere in capable of an attack. Or again lone gunman which are hard to predict. I may be way off but thats just the feeling that im getting.

[Cain]

I caught something on G+ about 2 things that happened 'right before this'.

1) Norway making noises about pulling out of Libya.

2) Norway advocating _for_ Palestinian independence.


Any comment on that observation?

Well, Norway have been trying to negotiate between Israel and Palestinian groups for a good long time now.  The Oslo Accords, for example.  Most people and to be honest most political parties in the west now accept that there needs to be some kind of Palestinian state, so I cannot see any kind of link there.  I believe Norway have been making noises for quite a while about their military not being able to cope with a prolonged Libya campaign - at least a month, if not longer, so nothing new on that front either.

[Cain]

Death count is now at least 80, from the Utoya shootings alone.

The Norwegian man is 32 years old.  BBC has floated the Neo-Nazi theory, but as they pointed out, such groups were largely neutralized in the country, both politically and in their more paramilitary forms.

Turns out he told the camp officials he was there to give a talk on the Oslo bombing to the kids, and once they gathered together, started shooting.  This accounts for the high death rate.  He was armed with a pistol, an automatic weapon of some kind and a shotgun.  Again, this makes me think the youth camp was the real target, that the Oslo bomb was a feint.

I know it's only the addition of a single step, but we're seeing this more and more often, as a strategy.  Think Mumbai, for example.  Or in Iraq, where car bombs would be planted or suicide bombers would work together in such a way that one bombing would set up the conditions for a second, much bloodier attack, which was the real objective.

[Elder Iptuous]

By conditions, i assume you mean law enforcement being utilized at the bombing sight making for a slower response to the shooting.

is it being considered in the law enforcement community that a standard course of action these days might should be to hold back, after a bombing, some percentage of your men specifically as a quick response team to a follow-on?

[Cain]

No, not necessarily, to your first sentence.

In Mumbai, the attacks were used to generate an international outrage.  Terrorists then spoofed a call from the Indian Foreign Minister which was one threat off of declaring outright war, in hope of provoking Pakistan to move troops to the Indian border (and away from Warizistan).  The attack created a psychological expectation in the minds of international observers, which the terrorists then exploited and nearly succeeded at, in order to achieve their primary objective (which, after all, was not slaughtering Indians for no reason, but to get the Pakistani Army to give up their offensive against jihadist groups).

In this case, the bombing gave a reason for a "police officer" to show up suddenly and unannounced at a political party youth camp, shortly after an attack against the government.  If there had been no bombing, would he have been allowed in?  What excuse could he use to gather the teenagers together in one place?  After an attack on the government offices though, it would make sense for additional protection to be sent to political gatherings of the ruling party.  Especially when they are so close to Oslo (the drive is roughly 40 minutes).  Again, the bombing created the expectation, of protection being provided, which this terrorist appeared to do, in order to fulfill his primary objective - killing members of the Labour Party Youth Wing.

Now, why he would do that is a very good question indeed...I'm very eager to get more information about this man's political involvement, criminal record and his stated reasons for the attack, if any.  And, of course, to find out if he was working alone or not.  He could be, quite easily.  But I wouldn't want to take that on faith, and I doubt anyone else will, either.

[Cain]

Suspect named

Anders Behring Breivik, the 32-year-old suspect in Friday's attacks in Norway, held right-wing views, say police.

Police chief Sveinung Sponheim said his 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 told Norwegian broadcaster NRK.

Little is currently known about him apart from what has appeared on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter - and these entries appear to have been set up just days ago.

On the Facebook page attributed to him, he describes himself as a Christian and a conservative. The Facebook page is no longer available but it also listed interests such as body-building and freemasonry.

The gunman was described by witnesses who saw him on Utoeya island as tall and blond - and dressed in a police uniform. The image of him posted on Facebook depict a blond, blue-eyed man.

The Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang quoted a friend as saying that the suspect turned to right-wing extremism when in his late 20s. The paper also said that he participated in online forums expressing strong nationalistic views.
Bomb ingredient

Mr Breivik is thought to have studied at the Oslo Commerce School and his work is listed as Breivik Geofarm, a company Norwegian media is describing as a farming sole proprietorship.

The company was set up to cultivate vegetables, melons, roots and tubers, Norway's TV2 says, and speculation in local media is rife that through such a link he may have had access to fertiliser, an ingredient used in bomb-making.

A Twitter account attributed to the suspect has also emerged but it only has one post, which is a quote from philosopher John Stuart Mill: "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests."

As with his Facebook page, the tweet was posted on 17 July.

It reveals very little about the man except an interest in libertarianism and a clear belief in the power of the individual.

[MMIX]

His only tweet was a J S Mill quote

"One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests."

So this is a big win for the law of unintended consequences. Or maybe this is the inevitable consequence of privileging the individual over the collective, who knows?

It certainly shows the effects of inflation since Mill's time; back in the day the motivated individual was only worth 99 armchair revolutionaries.

[Triple Zero]

I find a Facebook account that is set up only days before the event highly suspect to contain anything but specific information he (or his organisation) would want us to know in light of the event.
(same goes for the Twitter feed, though that's more obvious)

Interesting how that one-two step plan worked btw. So if he'd acted alone, he'd have to set off the bomb, then drive to Utoya to do the policeman spiel. What are the timings of the events again?

[Lenin McCarthy]

They're your usual first world Labour Party - social democracy, turned a little to the right and against immigration.

Note that most political youth organizations here have at least some degree of independence from their mother organizations, and AUF are significantly to the left of the Labour Party.

At least 80 killed at the Utøya camp, apparently. Fuck.

Anders Behring Breivik used to be a member of the right-wing populist Progress Party and its youth organization (where he chaired a local branch for several months in 2002), but he left a couple of years ago, probably because he thought their policies on immigration were too naïve. He has been an active commenter on far right and anti-Islam blogs.