The far right in Europe post-Oslo
The trial of Breivik has received some coverage by the BBC, but I expect this to lapse with an anticipated ten week trial:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17781472
As you would expect pundits and analysts have published their views of late, although IMHO their timing is poor and it would have been better to wait till the trial ended.
The first article was published a month ago in France, by a Norwegian:http://www.opendemocracy.net/mariano...root-in-europe
There is some cross-over in a FP Blog piece by a German author:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...lone?page=full
Review of the police's handling of the attacks
Hat tip to an occasional blogsite for a pointer to:
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The Norweigan Central Evaluation Commission has published its review into police handling of the violent attacks of 22 July 2011 in Norway
Summary:
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The main findings and recommendations are:
Notification by red alert: The police need to review and improve their alert system.
Situation reporting: The police need to improve situation reporting skills, focusing on verifying information, making sure the information is relevant for the superior lead, and highlighting information that is new since the last situation report.
Organisation, direction and coordination: There is mixed capability from area to area to respond to an event of this kind, and some areas had not updated their response plans. There is a need to consider introducing requirements as to minimum police staffing and skills, and there should be more attention on district-to-district peer support. The police needs to introduce a nation-wide emergency communications system due to communications problems experienced during the event, and several other IT and communications systems should be revamped. Police need to provide more training in incident management. There was good coordination between police and other partners on the ground. Overall, the Commission finds that the police carried out their duties as promptly as possible under the circumstances.
Management of evacuees and family/friends: Family and friends have been positive about the support they received from police in the immediate aftermath of the event, and centres for evacuees and family/friends were rapidly set up. But confusion was caused because several hotline numbers were released, people were confused about which one to use, and cooperation with the public health services caused frustration.
Public relations: There was confusion about which police district was handling press and media enquiries, and the Commission recommends that where more than one police district is affected by an incident the National Police Directorate should play a greater role in coordination. More user-friendly software is needed for posting information on the public police website, and insufficient attention was devoted to public relations challenges in the restoration-of-normality phase.
Health and safety: The Commission recommends that local Health and Safety plans be developed further.
Link to report:https://www.politi.no/vedlegg/rapport/Vedlegg_1665.pdf
Link to the pointer:http://rachelbriggs.wordpress.com/
Oslo 22/7 attacks: learning the lessons
After the bombing attack in central Oslo and the massacre at a youth camp on Utoya island, by Anders Behring Breivik, Norway set up an independent commission, known as the 22 July Commission, to:
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review and learn from the terrorist attacks
This link is to the commission's website, which has an English extract, which is highly recommended reading:http://22julikommisjonen.no/en/Report
The extract has some startling comments on the first responders & health service compared to the police and on the difficulties of ensuring identified problems are really resolved.
The BBC report on 22/7:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19241327 and this week Breivik was dealt with in court:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19376468
I am particularly interested in the pre-attack intelligence aspects, in March 2012 the Norwegian PST or Police Security Services:
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is comparable to the MI5 in the UK
To date I have been unable to trace a copy of this report; the BBC News report has a very short summary:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17399488
If anyone has a link to the report, preferably in English, please let me know or post here.
Finally there is a previous thread on the Oslo attacks 'Norway attacks: what happened and the implications', so this thread will be merged one day:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=13830
Utoeya: How does a country recover from mass murder?
Lessons seen and mainly learnt from Norway:
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It's been nearly two years since Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik murdered 77 people, most of them teenagers. Nearly a quarter of Norwegians knew someone directly affected. But as the country began to grieve together, it also embarked on a unique process of healing.
Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22951220