Norway attacks: what happened and the implications (new title)
Moderator's Note: Original thread title was 'Oslo explosion: dozens injured, buildings damaged after Norway city blast' and amended next day.
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A massive explosion rocked central Oslo on Friday, injuring dozens of people and severely damaging government buildings including the Prime Minister’s office.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ity-blast.html
Could it be 'X', 'Y' or 'Z' ?
Two analysts comment on the bombing, without assigning blame: Starts
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The targeting of Norway should not be a surprise. In 2003, Al Qaeda --- through its current leader, Ayman Al-Zawahiri --- first threatened Norway, possibly because of the involvement of Norwegian special forces in Afghanistan. Since then, the Norwegian role in Afghanistan has expanded, although its troops are to be withdrawn later this year.
Ends:
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Whatever the cause of the explosion, the attack will have widespread ramifications in terms of Norway’s security policies, domestic politics, and in relation to broader European security issues. If Al Qaeda is shown to have some connection to the attack, or even it claims a connection, it will represent at least a small resurgence of the organization under its new leader and potentially a shift to attack more “soft target” countries that are less protected than high profile targets such as the United Kingdom and the United States.
Link:http://www.enduringamerica.com/home/...-al-qaeda.html
In a comment, so not verified by research:
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On German TV a terrorism expert pointed at an explosion at the Saudi Embassy in Oslo last year, to Norway's participation in the forces fighting against Qaddafi, and to the fact that one of the attacked buildings is Norway's Oil Ministry.
That link refers to a SAAG analysis, a year ago:http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5C...paper3915.html
A different angle, Norway & CT:
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Norway’s intelligence service had previously been criticised for its failure to keep track of suspected terror cells and the country was felt to be complacent about the prospect of a terror attack, secret cables from the WikiLeaks files reveal.
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...or-attack.html
Bombing in Oslo and Massacre on Utoya
I notice that there is no thread on this yet, probably because it is a little too close to home for many of us. Or even home for some of us. The idea of the threat is not to turn what is a tragedy into a case study but to look at what these events mean.
I think this attack in Norway is relevent to this board. A couple of observations while watching the events unfold on tv was that the immediate response was that this was AQ or an AQ linked group. Suggestions were then made that it might be an attack my right wing elements. Knowing very little about white supremacy in Norway and with a quick search on wikipedia yielding nothing, I thought this would be a good place for people to compile info and thoughts. This is indeed a worrying development, far right views and politics have been on the rise in Northern Europe over the last decade but even so such an event was unthinkable.
Are the far right the new threat? Will we see other states cracking down on far right groups, the EDL in England or the various militias in the States.
EDIT: Thanks for the merge.
Wikipedia's aggregate story
Wikipedia seems to be evolving into a rather efficient news aggregator:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks
Implications of Oslo: today's thoughts
Grim day yesterday for Norway, which continues today. It is almost a throwback to the invasion by Hitler's Germany in 1940 for the violence and the realisation when Quisling and his followers came to the fore, assisting the occupation that there was an 'enemy within'.
Much has been written about 'Lone Wolves', notably by Raffaello Pantucci and his website is: http://raffaellopantucci.com/tag/terrorism/ He is ex-IISS and now aligned to Kings College London. He has wisely not yet commented.
The potential for 'Lone Wolves' to develop has always been there, which the USA is more familiar with than Western Europe. Today the speed of moving to planning an attack is faster and the knowledge required easier to find. The extreme right has it's "lunatic fringe", rarely aggressive in Western Europe I say and despite all the bluster it is usually defensive posturing.
The BBC's Oslo correspondent has added a comment on the Norwegian extreme right:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14260195
I am sure many politicians across Europe, particularly where there is an extreme right fringe, will be asking their security agencies for a review of their own national / regional position. There is no reason why that should not be done in the UK, maybe in the USA & Canada?
Governments will normally conduct such a review behind a wall of secrecy. I see no reason why, in the UK, the Home Affairs Select Committee should not hold an open hearing nor that US Congressman who holds hearings on the threat from Muslims.
...and then there's his manifesto...
More precisely, the Israeli press' take on it...
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Norway massacre suspect aired anti-Muslim, pro-Israel views
(...)
Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian who killed nearly 100 people in a combined terror attack Friday that included car bombings in Oslo and a shooting rampage at an island summer camp, held fiercely anti-Islamic and pro-Israel views, according to a 1,500 page manifesto he uploaded before his killing spree Friday.
(...)
In a jab at left-wing Jews, Breivik writes that pre-war German Jews were disloyal to their country, “at least the so-called liberal Jews, similar to the liberal Jews today that oppose nationalism/Zionism and support multiculturalism. Jews that support multiculturalism today are as much of a threat to Israel and Zionism (Israeli nationalism) as they are to us. So let us fight together with Israel, with our Zionist brothers against all anti-Zionists, against all cultural Marxists/multiculturalists.”
(...)
The manifesto also serves as a call to arms of sorts, in which Breivik lays out his reasons for launching the attack, focusing on what he describes as the importance of nationalism and the growing scourge of Islam in Europe.
Full article found here: http://www.jpost.com/International/A...aspx?id=230762
A good compilation of Brievik's internet ramblings
Four articles worthy of reading
Understandably the press have started let's say more thoughtful, reflective pieces and having read through a pile I've picked out four IMHO of value.
Breivik's Swamp: Was the Oslo killer radicalized by what he read online? From FP Blog by Tony Archer, a Brit who has lived in Finland and watched the CT scene:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...swamp?page=0,0
The NYT looks at Norway's immigrant population:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/wo..._r=2&ref=world
Which cites an Eritrean refugee:
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The most important thing is what the majority thinks and the majority is fine with us.
A Norwegian professor's article notes half the immigrants are from Poland and Sweden ends with:
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..we doubtless woke on Saturday morning to a slightly more paranoid, slightly less pleasant society. A society where we have become aware of our fundamental vulnerability.
Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/thomas-...d-consequences
Finally the 'Five Remedial Lessons from the Norwegian Tragedy' by Paul Pillar;Only the opening line for each
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1. Don't jump to quick conclusions about responsibility for an attack, let alone spin out instant analysis based on such conclusions. 2. The threat that gets the most attention is not the only threat. 3. Individual incidents are not necessarily indicative of larger trends. 4. Open societies are inherently vulnerable to terrorist attack and ultimately unprotectable. 5. That a previously unknown individual (possibly with some help) could inflict so many casualties (more even than the 7/7 transit bombings in London) should put into perspective the limits of detection and prevention.
Link:http://nationalinterest.org/blog/pau...n-tragedy-5659
A matter of "it could never happen here"?
Thanks to Wikileaks we learn that the Norwegians failed to take the threat of terrorism seriously.
WikiLeaks files show Norway unprepared for terror attack
It seems that it always takes a tragedy before a country (the politicians, security services and the people) starts to get serious about the diverse terrorist threat it faces.
I know some of those guys!
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Originally Posted by
Bill Moore
I have the unpopular opinion that although we generally respond quicker in the U.S. our so called SWAT teams (in many of our smaller cities they're largely composed of overweight, under trained police who obviously don't this responsibility seriously) will wait outside a building (name your school shooting) "assessing" the situation while innocents are being murdered.
That’s just resources, though, isn’t it? Small town law enforcement agencies just can’t afford full-time SWAT types, and even if they could I don’t know that there would be enough individuals with the right mix of talents and motivations to fill the posts, not to mention the time and expense of training up those who do. Now, by ‘small town’ I mean those communities of 500–10,000 people like most in the area where I grew up. But if by ‘smaller cities’ you mean communities of 250,000 or more the reasonable expectations may well be different (and if you have a unit you feel fit to call a SWAT team I would think you could at the very least require the members to be physically fit).
Around here there is little to no shooting of messengers...
Howsomeever, there is a fair amount of shooting at dubious messages and even more at good messages poorly delivered in an antagonistic or condescending tone... ;)
Seems fair. :D
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