17 Dead in Twin Norway Terror Attacks

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17 Dead in Twin Norway Terror Attacks

 

17 dead in twin Norway attacks

 

Pierre-Henry Deshayes 

July 23, 2011 - 7:23AM

 

Twin shooting and bomb attacks have left at least 17 dead in Norway after a gunman disguised as a policeman opened fire at a youth camp and a bomb blast tore through government buildings in Oslo.

Many were also reported wounded from the explosion in central Oslo and the shooting at a summer school meeting of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's ruling Labour Party on an island outside the capital.

In a late night press conference, Stoltenberg said it was too early to speculate to say who was behind the attacks but insisted they would not intimidate one of Europe's most peaceful countries.

 

"People have lived through a nightmare that very few of us can imagine," he said. "The coming days will show who is responsible and what kind of punishment they will get."

"Norway is a tight-knit small country and when this kind of catastrophe hits us this strengthens our country and that is something that will help us through this difficult time.

"The message to whoever attacked us, the message from all of Norway is that you will not destroy us, you will not destroy our democracy and our ideals for a better world."

 

Speaking alongside Stoltenberg, Justice Minister Knut Storberget confirmed that a suspect who had been detained was a Norwegian national.

 

"A person has been arrested... I have been informed that he is a Norwegian," Storberget told reporters.

"I do not think it is right from my position to go into details about him... (It is) way, way too early to say anything about responsibility just yet."

 

Police confirmed at least 10 deaths on the island but added that they fear the number will rise. Police had earlier confirmed that seven people were killed in the bomb attack in Oslo.

The United States and European leaders immediately denounced the attacks and vowed solidarity with NATO member Norway - an enthusiastic participant in international military missions that has forces in Afghanistan and is participating in Western air strikes in Libya.

The shootings took place at a youth camp on Utoeya, an island just outside Oslo where Stoltenberg had been due to give a speech on Saturday to the 560 people attending.

Witnesses described scenes of panic and horror after the gunman, who police said was disguised as a police officer but never worked for the police force, opened fire on the youth gathering.

 

"I saw a lot of people running and screaming, I ran to the nearest building and hid under a bed," Emilie Bersaas, 19, told Britain's Sky News.

"It was very terrifying. At one point the shooting was very very close to the building, it actually hit the building, the people in the next room screamed."

"It is kind of unreal, especially in Norway," Bersaas said. "This is something we hear about happening in the US."

 

Norwegian police said they feared there could also be explosives on the island.

Reports of the island shooting emerged shortly after a blast tore through the government quarter in central Oslo, home to the prime minister's office, other ministries and some of the country's leading media.

Police said a "bomb" had been behind the "powerful explosion".

 

"We can confirm that we have seven dead and two have been seriously injured" in the bomb attack, a police spokesman told reporters at a briefing in Oslo. Several dozen were also wounded, police said.

"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.

 

Oslo's mayor Fabian Stang said the capital was struggling to come to terms with the idea that it had joined the list of cities targetted by bombers.

 

"Today we think about those people living in New York and London who have experienced this kind of thing," he told Sky.

"I do not think it is possible for us to understand what has happened today but hopefully we will be able to go on and that tomorrow Oslo will be a peaceful city again."

 

Images on Norwegian television showed the prime minister's office and other buildings heavily damaged, footpaths covered in broken glass and smoke rising from the area.

A police spokesman said a vehicle had been seen driving at high speed in the area just before the explosion but did not confirm that the blast had been caused by a car bomb.

Police had sealed off the area and urged residents to stay in their homes.

 

The EU condemned the attacks as "acts of cowardice" and the NATO chief denounced them as "heinous".

US President Barack Obama called the attacks "a reminder that the entire international community has a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring."

Norway's intelligence police agency (PST) said in February that Islamic extremism was a major threat to the country, describing it as "our main priority and our main concern".

Norway, which counts some 500 troops in Afghanistan, has never suffered an attack at home by Islamic extremists.

However, police last year arrested three Muslim men based in Norway suspected of planning an attack.

Norwegian F-16 fighter jets are also participating in air strikes in Libya, though the country has said it will withdraw its forces from the Libya operations on August 1.

The Norwegian capital is also a well-known symbol of international peace efforts, home to the Nobel Peace Prize and the birthplace of the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords.

 

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/world/17-dead-in-twin-norway-attacks-20110723-1htqe.html

 

 

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


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I wonder who did this

 

And why...

 

Ed - apparently the current suspect is a local and no known motive. 


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Now news is saying 80+ dead

Now news is saying 80+ dead in the shooting.  Yuck...

 

It sounds like they have a home-grown political terrorist, at least that's what they are leaning towards so far.

 

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Hey there Melles

 

 

Been a while - hope all well your end of the www. 

 

 


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Atheistextremist wrote:Been

Atheistextremist wrote:

Been a while - hope all well your end of the www. 

Same thoughts from me, mellestad.

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Yah, I saw that on the news

Yah, I saw that on the news earlier.  Apparently, the shooter is homegrown.  However, connecting him to the bomb is, at the moment, less probable.  From what I saw, he matches the physical description of someone in the area of the bombing.

That, in itself, doesn't actually say what was going on.  Remember that the US had the anthrax attack right after 9/11 and those letters had to have been in the mail before the other attack.  That and we know that the anthrax was from fort Detrick, so not AlQuaida connected.

I am not saying that they aren't connected.  Possibly they are but it is too soon to say and the US has already seen two different unconnected plots happen at the same time.

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And here we

And here we go:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-norway-attacks-20110724,0,3637984.story?track=rss

So, is this because he was mentally sick or because he was a TrueBeliever?  ... or are the two actually the same development stages?  Can Obama use the Patriot Act now to outlaw evangelicals as terrorists? 

 

 


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I wonder how many people

I wonder how many people assumed when the story broke that Muslims had done it.

 

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http://news.yahoo.com/91-dead

http://news.yahoo.com/91-dead-island-massacre-bombing-norway-101247778.html

It's 91 dead, and the motive was a apparently "Christian fundamentalist, anti-Muslim views".

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Brian37 wrote:I wonder how

Brian37 wrote:

I wonder how many people assumed when the story broke that Muslims had done it.

 

Everyone here in Scandinavia, but only for the first couple of hours.

I had a bad feeling it was an Oklahoma City type thing from the beginning, and it is turning out to look more and more like that.

Likely only one perpetrator, with paranoid delussional ideas, based in Nationalism.

Every single European Country, Norway included has an extreme Nationalistic fringe. This guy probably came out of that environment, and like T. Mcveigh, planned and executed this thing on his own, because he's seriously Paranoid Delussional. That's my prediction anyway.

 

Absolutely revolting this... Poor kids

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92 dead.As someone else

92 dead.

As someone else posted in another thread, details about this nut job are coming out that he was a right wing fundie Christian.

Somebody really must have scrambled his brains growing up. But according to some Christians religion never kills.

I can give you 92 reasons religion does kill.

 

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Brian37 wrote:92 dead.As

Brian37 wrote:

92 dead.

As someone else posted in another thread, details about this nut job are coming out that he was a right wing fundie Christian.

Somebody really must have scrambled his brains growing up. But according to some Christians religion never kills.

I can give you 92 reasons religion does kill.

 

 

93 now.  One of the injured has died.

 

-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.

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On BBC 'Newshour' podcast

On BBC 'Newshour' podcast I am currently listening to, covering the service in Oslo cathedral in response to the tragedy, the female bishop was somewhat discomforted when asked how she felt knowing that the guy was Christian, and could only respond, after some hesitation, with the typical lame general excuses.

Everything I have heard so far suggests he was deeply inspired by the Church and its history - he seems to be a fan of the Crusades - and he really felt he 'had' to do this in defence of his beliefs and what he saw as the threat to his country.

This is a stark demonstration of the fallacy of religious 'morality' and belief in general, which is ultimately based on what people deeply feel, and imagine is divinely inspired. So his version of what 'should' be the 'right' values, and how they should be defended, is just as defensible as any faith. IOW indefensible, based only on fantasies of the mind.

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Until religion and holy

Until religion and holy books are in a majority seen as the weapons they are, they will never be pragmatically placed into the past time as a majority needed to maintain a level of global civility.

There is no utopia and there will always be of the 7 billion people who hold irrational beliefs. We can no more force religion out of existence any more than a Muslim can blow something up to get us to submit or convert. And what this asshole did is no different.

That is why it is important for us to criticize religion and all holy books. The history of religion is full of killers who do so on the bases of a naked assertion.

We can however, put a leash on dip shits like this to some degree, by keeping criticism and skepticism of government and religion open and free.

 

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Christian extremist kills 90+ in Norway attacks.

 "Only the Quran insights terrorism, evil and mass murder on the world.  Look at them, they fly planes into buildings, and behead people over cartoons.  It's all the Muslims.  Our (Christianity's) fundamentalists just mouth off, and they aren't hurting anyone!"

 

Can't count how many times I've heard that crap.  Never mind Timothy Mcvae, decades of bombing in Northern Ireland, countless conflicts around the world, attempts to take over the supreme court, get psuedo-science taught in our schools, perpetuate AIDS in Africa, systematically enable and cover up child rape on a massive scale for decades etc. etc.   Well it was obviously BS before, and here's one more terrible example of how Fundamentalists of any dogma are dangerous.  

 

Now this guy plots 2 separate and elaborate attacks, and kills about 100 people.  The second location was a political retreat for young people.  He wore a Police uniform, and gathered kids together to systematically slaughter them.  Sick Fuck!

 

Worst part is Christians will just say he was crazy, coupled with being in a tiny minority of people with extreme beliefs.  They'll just chalk it up to that and continue acting like the moderate Christians aren't propping up the fundamentalists who are doing a pretty good job of ruining the world!

 

I do see one point in what the guy was so pissed off about though.  Muslims coming into a country and taking over because the Governments are scared out of their minds to offend them.  It's happening in England and all over Europe.  The governments have no backbone, cause they know the Muslims will take extreme measures if their delicate religious sensibilities are offended.  Utter BS, and how does killing children improve the situation???

 

This, sadly, is the kind of thing that keeps me coming back to spread the word that these dogmas are false, and fucking everything up!

 

MOD edit:  Moved from a new thread on the same subject.

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Apparently he was radically

Apparently he was radically anti-Muslim and wanted Muslims expelled from Europe.

 

Which isn't really an uncommon view in either the Christian or atheist movements.

 

 

 


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Nope, it's not an uncommon view.

 

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

Apparently he was radically anti-Muslim and wanted Muslims expelled from Europe.

 

Which isn't really an uncommon view in either the Christian or atheist movements.

 

 

I don't like muslim doctrine myself, given it preaches death to atheists but this guy is something else. 

Walking around shooting people. What can you say. He's a psychopathic lunatic, whatever his beliefs.

 

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Well, I don't know what goes

Well, I don't know what goes on down in OZ but around here, we have the occasional guy who murders abortion doctors. Don't get me wrong, a few years ago, we had a serial killer who targeted doctors who did third trimester abortions but that was an exception.

 

On the other hand, the Moslem's seem to have an inexhaustible supply of this type of asshole. Don't get me wrong, I am not in favor of concentration camps or anything along those lines but if you want to live in a sane society, you need to be sane. If you can't manage that, then fucking go home where you too can be killed at a whim.

 

Somehow I stand reminded of the words of Carlos Mencia. “I overheard a conversation between two muslims who were saying that if they got the bomb, they would use it. Well, my country has the bomb and they have used it. Twice!”.

 

Also, the words of Dennis Miller. “Remember that America has a very long fuse but at the end of that fuse is a huge fucking bomb”.

 

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Cpt_pineapple

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

Apparently he was radically anti-Muslim and wanted Muslims expelled from Europe.

 

Which isn't really an uncommon view in either the Christian or atheist movements.

 

 

 

I don't know of that many atheists who actually want Muslims banned from Europe

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Recovering fundamentalist

Recovering fundamentalist wrote:

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

Apparently he was radically anti-Muslim and wanted Muslims expelled from Europe.

 

Which isn't really an uncommon view in either the Christian or atheist movements.

 

 

 

I don't know of that many atheists who actually want Muslims banned from Europe

 

Many do post rather anti-Muslim views such as not letting Muslims in in the first place for example.