Militants staged twin bomb and shooting attacks in Norway on Friday, leaving at least 30 dead as a blast tore through government buildings and a gunman opened fire at a youth meeting of the ruling party.
Many were also reported wounded from the bomb blast in central Oslo and the shooting at a summer school meeting of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s ruling Labour Party outside the capital.
Authorities were reeling, with police saying they had no clue who or what was behind the attack, but media reported that the gunman behind the shooting had been arrested. The United States and Europe immediately denounced the attacks and vowed solidarity with NATO member Norway.
Police said a “bomb” was behind a “powerful explosion” that tore through the government quarter in central Oslo, home to the prime minister’s office, the Finance Ministry and some of the country’s leading media. Stoltenberg was safe and there were no reports of other senior government officials being killed or wounded. The government was to hold a crisis meeting later on Friday. “We have no main theory, we don’t even have a working theory,” a police official said separately. “We already have enough to do to get an understanding of the situation.”
Police did say however, that they believed the two attacks were connected. “There are good reasons to believe that there is a link between the events,” police commissioner Sveinung Sponheim told reporters in Oslo. Media reports said a man disguised as a police officer opened fire on the youth meeting at a summer camp on Utoeya, an island just outside Oslo, where Stoltenberg had been scheduled to give a speech on Saturday to the 560 people attending.
A police spokesman said a vehicle had been seen driving at high speed in the area just before the explosion but did confirm that the blast had been caused by a car bomb. Police had sealed off the area, which also houses the country’s biggest tabloid newspaper Verdens Gang (VG). Norway’s intelligence police agency (PST) said in February that extremism was a major threat to the country, describing extremism as “our main priority and our main concern”.
Norwegian prosecutors earlier this month also filed a terrorism charge against Mullah Krekar, founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam, who was accused of threatening a politician with death over his potential deportation from the country.
Krekar had warned that “Norway will pay a heavy price” if he were deported.
