The Norwegian car bombing and almost simultaneous shooting had all the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda operation. As the first reports emerged, I suggested a wait and see approach.
With the initial claim of responsibility from a known al-Qaeda group, the narrative seemed set and not particularly surprising; this looked like the London bombings. As I noted after those reports, there had been widespread pre-existing warnings of Islamic radical violence in Norway including prior arrests.
But as more information is becoming known about the suspect, it is becoming just as likely that this was either a lone wolf or “Timothy McVeigh – style” operation. From the website News from Norway:
Justice Minister Knut Storberget confirmed that police were holding a suspect, charged with gunning down many members of the Labour Party’s youth organization AUF (Arbeidernes ungdomsfylking) who were attending their annual youth summer camp on an island in the Tyri Fjord.
Neither Storberget nor police, however, would reveal more details about the suspect. They would not identify him nor say whether he had a criminal record, although the website for newspaper VG identified him as Anders Behring Breivik, age 32, a self-described nationalist with no criminal record who was opposed to Islam and to a multi-cultural society. VG and Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reported that police were raiding the suspect’s home in west Oslo Friday night.
I would even take these reports with a grain of salt. I regret not taking that grain of salt even after the initial reports of an al-Qaeda connection; sometimes news moves too fast for our own good.
I expect that by the time we wake tomorrow, the Norwegians will have more information on the suspect, the motives, and the connections.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Latest update: 87 dead.
80 from the summer camp
I’d wait a long, long while to make any assumptions on this one.
The government, like our government, will try to white wash this as a lone operator–
But, for different reasons.
I’d check U.K. reporting in about a week if I were me….
Either way, you would think that a lot of Norwegians are going to wish they had a death penalty.
How about those gun laws?
Who needs to practice stinking self defense when the State will protect you? (he said facetiously)
Anyone care to lay odds that those kids will be the fertilizer for more laws?
I was blogging this story this morning, but stopped my post when I learned the bomb was parked near the Prime Minister’s office, the PM he was expected to visit the
Labor Party indoctrination summer camp later, and both locations were occupied or owned by the Labor Party. The prevailing narrative just didn’t seem kosher.
Understandable, though, that Islamists would be the number one suspect what with having carried out tens of thousands of attacks around the world and being the world’s leading babarians doing what barbarians do.
“…the PM he…” Jeesh! I are an educated man, damnit!
On a day when the death toll goes from 7 to 87, anything can and will be said.
Not being there, and as it was Norway, being there would mean the pistol now sitting next to my keyboard would neither be sitting there, nor on my hip, it is grievous unarmed citizens are not taught to swarm, rather than flee from someone firing at them. (Whew! Tangled sentence.) However, if one is as likely to be shot running from as running towards evil…
And why a McVeigh style…why not Mumbai, or Beslan, et. al.?
The happiest people in the world right now I suspect are the MSM types who are relieved they don’t have to explain away yet another act of Muslim violence. The story on Fox News made sure to point out that the guy had “right wing political views” and had “posted to Christian websites”, this according to the Norwegian police.
I wonder what the media will do with that information?
Anyone read the language? Chrome auto-translate is handy, but….
I don’t retract what I said. The guy allegedly has neo-Nazi connections. How that makes him right wing when Nazis are Socialists, I don’t know. Anyway, Nazis and Muslims make common cause.
Althouse has a post about the guy’s FB page; she ponders it as disinformation. Is he really a Christian? Not if he’s a Nazi; they were pagan. Why did he do the bomb and shoot route. He supposedly hate Muslims. Uh huh. Yet, the Nazis and Muslims have history dating back to WWII.
We’ll see what shakes out, providing the media doesn’t do it’s usual anti-right nonsense.