Norway attacks: what happened and the implications (new title)

[AdamG]

Moderator's Note: Original thread title was 'Oslo explosion: dozens injured, buildings damaged after Norway city blast' and amended next day.

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

[J Wolfsberger]

Possibly multiple blasts.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe...ion/index.html

[AdamG]

The Norwegian police have detained one man who is believed to have shot at a youth camp of the Labor Party on the island of Utoya 50 km away from Oslo after the capital was rattled by a bomb attack.

The man is said to have been dressed and to have opened fire with a machine gun; his arrest has not been confirmed by the police.

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=130504

[davidbfpo]

Two analysts comment on the bombing, without assigning blame: Starts

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 Since then, the Norwegian role in Afghanistan has expanded, although its troops are to be withdrawn later this year.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:

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:

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:

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

[Bill Moore]

Just because the Jihad websites are excited about the attack doesn't mean they were conducted by Islamists. They may have been two separate groups for each attack with an unlikely synchronization in timing, or both attacks may have been conducted by domestic political extremists. Too early to say at this point. First reports are almost always incorrect.

http://news.yahoo.com/undetonated-ex...213754348.html

Undetonated explosives were found on an island where a gunman killed at least 10 people at a youth camp near Oslo, Norwegian police said on Friday.
Explosives were found on the island," deputy Oslo police chief Sveining Sponheim told reporters. He said a man detained by police was aged 32 and "ethnic Norwegian."

[SWJ Blog]

Norway Attack Roundup

Entry Excerpt:

Bomb Blast, Gun Assault Terrorize Norway - VOA

Violent attacks savaged normally peaceful Norway on Friday, with an Oslo bomb blast killing at least seven people and then a gunman disguised as a police officer opening fire on a youth camp. The twin assaults occurred within hours of each other, although it was not immediately clear they were linked.

The mid-afternoon bomb blast rocked Norway's government headquarters and also set the nearby oil ministry building on fire. Hundreds of windows in the 17-story government headquarters were shattered, as were others in buildings as far as 400 meters away. Thick, black smoke billowed from some of the offices, and streets in the normally quiet neighborhood were littered with debris from the explosion. Authorities said at least seven people were killed and numerous others injured.

Hours later, police reported that a gunman disguised as a police officer opened fire on youths attending a camp sponsored by the ruling Labour Party. At least five people were wounded in the attack. Authorities said they dispatched anti-terror police to the campsite on Utoeya Island south of Oslo...

CNA, a research group that studies terrorism, said a terror group, Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami (the Helpers of the Global Jihad) claimed responsibility for the attacks. The Islamist organization said the attacks were in response to the presence of Norwegian troops in Afghanistan as part of the U.S.-led international fight against the Taliban and Islamic insurgents, as well as insults against the Prophet Mohammed...

More

Blasts and Gun Attack in Norway; 7 Dead - NYT
Blast Rocks Oslo; Gunman Attacks Youth Camp - WP
Deadly Attacks Shake Norway - WSJ
Oslo Bomb Blast Kills at Least 7, Injures Several - LAT
Twin Terror Attacks Shock Norway - BBC
Seven Dead in Oslo Bomb; Nine Killed at Youth Camp - TT
Blast in Oslo Government Buildings - Reuters
Oslo Police Say 9-10 People Killed at Youth Camp - AP
Nine, Perhaps 10, Killed in Norway Shooting - Reuters
Norway Police Says Believe Shooting Linked to Blast - Reuters
Norway Attack: Likely Suspected Groups - Reuters
Oslo Attack Speculation Centers on Kurdish Group - WP
Factbox: Norway Security Outlook: 'Increased Uncertainty' - Reuters
Oslo Bomb Latest Updates - BBC
Video, Map, Updates of Oslo Explosion - NYT



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[TDB]

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.

[davidbfpo]

There is a SWJ item on the Norway attack, with links to media reports and some comments:http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/201...ttack-roundup/

This US report appears - after a little scanning - to contain a lot of information gathered by researching the suspect:http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/dpps/new...22-kh_14255246

I've been listening to the BBC News this morning and there is a mixture of reporting, speculation and more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14260205. Within are parts of the jigsaw on the attack, such as reports the suspect / defendant had purchased several tonnes of fertiliser in may for his farm.

[defense linguistics]

Wikipedia seems to be evolving into a rather efficient news aggregator:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks

[TDB]

Wikipedia seems to be evolving into a rather efficient news aggregator:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks

I noticed this 10 minutes after the news here reported it, crazy.

[davidbfpo]

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.

[davidbfpo]

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:

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:

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

[davidbfpo]

Lessons seen and mainly learnt from Norway:

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

[davidbfpo]

The Norwegian internal security service, PST, published a report on the Breivik attack and why their systems failed to identify him beforehand as a threat. Thanks to a "lurker" I have found two press releases on the PST's website that summarise their July 2012 report, which appears to be only available in Norwegian:http://www.pst.no/media/43446/evalue...072011_PST.pdf

a) How far should a security service could go in preventing? http://www.pst.no/blogg/hvor-langt-s...i-a-forebygge/

b) PST's evaluation after 22 July events http://www.pst.no/media/utgivelser/e...-22-juli-2011/

[davidbfpo]

An event @ The Frontline Club, London next month with:

...award-winning foreign correspondent sne Seierstads new book, One of Us, offers a definitive account of this tragic episode in Norways history. She will be joining us to share her research and talk about what she discovered about Breivik, his ideology and the world he grew up in.

Normally within days a podcast apepars on the website:http://www.frontlineclub.com/insight...tad-one-of-us/

[davidbfpo]

A detailed and long analysis piece by Raffaello Pantucci 'What Have We Learned about Lone Wolves from Anders Behring Breivik?'. The abstract says:

Anders Behring Breivik’s massacre on July 22, 2011 showed the danger that a well-organized Lone Wolf could cause. The methodical and calculated way with which he prepared and justified his act awoke security services the world over as to the potential menace that this form of terrorism can pose. As they revise their strategies, this article casts a preliminary eye on the case using a particular Lone Wolf prism of analysis to try to see what lessons can be learned from the case. Drawing on Breivik’s own writing and public sources, the article analyses his biography, the ideology he used to justify his act, the degree to which he seems to have been connected to others, his effectiveness, what role the Internet played and his mental competence all to try to draw some early lessons from the case. In concluding it offers some possible lessons learned that might offer practitioners some ideas of how to counter this sort of a threat in the future.

Link:http://raffaellopantucci.com/2011/12...hring-breivik/

He concludes:

From the perspective of countering people going down Breivik’s path, it is almost impossible to imagine solutions without moving into the space of curtailing individual free speech rights something that is clearly counter-productive. However, some recognition of the potential for such virulent language to be taken further into action by certain individuals is important. Mainstream political parties should make greater efforts to counter it through debate when they see it emerge. A parallel case to be considered in this light is that of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the US. She was shot by a man who thought he was doing his part to support the extreme right of his party that had attacked Congresswoman Giffords as a traitor for holding certain views. Ideas and words have great power and in a world where we can see the ease with which terrorist operations can be launched by individuals without much outside direction, consideration must be paid to the fact that such extreme ideas might resonate in different ways than they are intended. While stamping out such ideas and thoughts is going to be impossible, currently in some European countries, such ideas have been allowed to slowly move into the mainstream with little confrontation from established political entities. More effort could be expended to confront such ideas and prevent them being mainstreamed. The result otherwise is likely to be more Lone Wolf attacks in the future with a few managing to get through with results as spectacular and tragic as Anders Behring Breivik’s.

To say the least an investigative nightmare, even with modern techniques, notably in IT systems doing the initial analysis - so many leads to check.

[davidbfpo]

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

[motorfirebox]

I'm really not looking forward to the coverage. Breivik is just going to spout the same awful, racist crap that awful racists always spout.

[Fuchs]

Imagine some billionaire tracks all TV hours wasted on such a crap and then decides to buy the same qty of TV hours, same time slots, for something useful.

[Firn]

I'm really not looking forward to the coverage. Breivik is just going to spout the same awful, racist crap that awful racists always spout.

Somehow for such people it is always necessary to sacrifies the lives of other human beings for the-ir greater good. Usually the preperation of this entails "hard choices" and "sacrifices" on their part and the story of their personal effort becomes central.

The human mind has an amazing ability to make things up to suit its perceived needs. In this twisted logic the more horrible the crime which "had to be done" the more laudable the personal effort to achieve or overcome it for the "good" purpose can be.