Police-dressed-like Shooter Kills 84 In Political Summer Camp In Norway

Anders Behring Breivik

A gunman dressed as a police officer opened fire on a summer camp of the Norwegian Labour Party, held on the island Utoeya and attended by hundreds of youths, killing 84 people, hours after the blast in the center of the capital of the country, Oslo, nearby the Prime Minister’s office.

Norwegian media said that police had in custody a 32-year-old man, named Anders Behring Breivik, about whom they specified he did not worked, nor had he ever, for the police.

Breivik is said to be of Norwegian descent and is believed to have connections to far-right organizations.

According to eye witnesses, a 6-foot tall blonde man entered the camp and began shooting with automatic guns. At first the number of victims was 10 but the death toll increased rapidly at dawn, as bodies were found in the waters surrounding the island.

The same sources said that many people had laid on the ground pretending to be dead, but that the shooter checked them thoroughly and shoot those who were down through the head.

He also shot at those who were attempting to swim back to the mainland, which was about three quarters of a mile away.

Police reported they were searching the area and that for the time being they could only say that there were 84 people dead found.

Utoeya Labour Youth League Summer Camp

It is not yet clear why did Breivik do this act, nor who is behind the bombs yesterday in the capital, but experts believe that they have in common the fact that they are both directed towards the ruling party in Norway, the left Labor Party.

The prime minister’s office was very close yesterday when the governmental building was set on fire, causing at least seven to die in that incident, and many to be wounded, and he was scheduled to speak to the young Labor supporters on Saturday on the Utoeya island, at the summer camp.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said he had spent many summers at the camp that was like a paradise to him and that not the paradise was turned into hell.

He added that this mass murder level has not been reached on Norwegian territory since the WWII.

The police in Oslo urged the people to stay at home and to avoid going to the central areas of the city.

The United States, the European Union and NATO were quick to condemn the act, British Foreign Secretary deemed it as “horrific,” while NATO’s secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen called it a “heinous act.”

President of the United States, Barack Obama said this act must remind people that the entire world had a part in preventing terrorism from spreading. He extended condolences to the people of Norway and offered American assistance, remembering how warmly the people of this country received him as he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Utoeya Camp after the Shooting

Nobel Prize Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland speculated that the attack at the summer camp was specifically directed toward killing young people who were getting involved in the political development of the country.

U.S. counterterrorism said that the United States had no information about any involvement of international terrorist groups in this tragedy, and that it was domestic. American analysts deem it to be more of a “Norway’s Oklahoma City” rather than a “Norway’s 9/11.”

Even so, a few terrorist groups attempted to take credit for it, but their claims seem immaterial. One of them said this was for the involvement of Norway in the conflict in Afghanistan.

Norway has some sort of radical Islamic activity going on on its territory, and even al-Qaeda-connected groups.

Last week an Iraqi-born cleric was convicted in a court for having threatened to kill Norwegians, if he were to be deported back to Iraq.

The tragic events in Oslo and on the nearby island represent the most serious attacks on European soil since the blasts in London in 2005.

The Prime Minister of Norway called it a “nightmare” and a “national tragedy.”

Update: Death toll reaches 91 as police still searching the island. Police speculates, based on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, that the suspect is some sort of far-right Christian fundamentalist.