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Title: At Least 80 Killed In Norway Shooting, Police Say
Source:
GLOBE & MAIL
URL Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news ... ing-police-say/article2106259/
Published: Jul 22, 2011
Author: Associated Press
Post Date: 2011-07-22 22:13:46 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 1208
Comments: 1
Norway’s peace was shattered twice Friday when a bomb ripped open buildings in the heart of its government and a man dressed as a police officer gunned down youths at a summer camp. Police say at least 80 people were killed at the youth camp shooting. Police linked one Norwegian, reportedly named Anders Behring Breivik, to both attacks, which is this nation’s worst violence since the Second World War. Police said they did not know the motive but an official said that the suspect seems to have acted alone and does not appear to be linked to a terrorist group. Hundreds of youths ran in terror at a camp on Utoya island where the prime minister had been scheduled to speak Saturday. Some even tried swimming to safety as the gunman fired. A 15-year-old camper named Elise said she heard gunshots, but then saw a police officer and thought she was safe. Then he started shooting people right before her eyes. “I saw many dead people,” said Elise, whose father, Vidar Myhre, didn’t want her to disclose her last name. “He first shot people on the island. Afterward he started shooting people in the water.” Elise said she hid behind the same rock that the killer was standing on. “I could hear his breathing from the top of the rock,” she said. She said it was impossible to say how many minutes passed while she was waiting for him to stop. A Norwegian police official says there is at least one unexploded device at the youth camp where a 32-year-old man opened fire. The official says a police bomb disposal team with support from military experts is working on disarming the device. The shooting occurred after the bombing in Oslo, Norway’s capital and the city where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded. The blast left a square covered in twisted metal, shattered glass and documents expelled from surrounding buildings in a dust-fogged scene that reminded one visitor from New York of Sept. 11. Ian Dutton, who was in a nearby hotel, said people “just covered in rubble” were walking through “a fog of debris.” “It wasn’t any sort of a panic,” he said, “It was really just people in disbelief and shock, especially in a such as safe and open country as Norway. You don’t even think something like that is possible.” Police said seven people died in the Oslo blast, in addition to the dozens killed at the camp, which was organized by the youth wing of the ruling Labour Party. Rescuers were to search the blast wreckage through the night for more victims, and Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said police fear there could be more victims at the camp as well. National Police Chief Sveinung Sponheim said a man was arrested in the shooting, and the suspect had been observed in Oslo before the explosion there. Police did not immediately say how much time elapsed between the bombing and the attack at Utoya, about 35 kilometres northwest, but reports of the shooting began appearing on Twitter about two and a half hours after the bombing. Chief Sponheim said the camp shooter “wore a sweater with a police sign on it. I can confirm that he wasn’t a police employee and never has been.” Aerial images broadcast by Norway’s TV2 showed members of a SWAT team dressed in black arriving at the island in boats and running up the dock. Behind them, people who stripped down to their underwear swam away from the island toward shore, some using flotation devices. Chief Sponheim said police were still trying to get an overview of the camp shooting and could not say whether there was more than one shooter. He said several people were injured but he could not comment on their conditions. In Oslo, most of the windows in the 20-floor high-rise where Mr. Stoltenberg and his administration work were shattered. Other buildings damaged house government offices and the headquarters of some of Norway’s leading newspapers. Oslo University Hospital said 12 people were admitted for treatment after the Utoya shooting, and 11 people were taken there from the explosion in Oslo. The hospital asked people to donate blood. Mr. Stoltenberg, who was home when the blast occurred and was not harmed, decried what he called “a cowardly attack on young innocent civilians.” “I have message to those who attacked us,” he said. “It’s a message from all of Norway: You will not destroy our democracy and our commitment to a better world.” Chief Sponheim would not give any details about the identity or nationality of the suspect, who was being interrogated by police. He said “we don’t want to speculate” on whether a terror group is responsible, and said some groups may take responsibility “to appear to be more important than they are.” The attacks formed the deadliest day of terror in Western Europe since the 2005 London bombings, which killed 52 people. Police said the Oslo explosion was caused by “one or more” bombs, but declined to speculate on who was behind the attack. They later sealed off the nearby offices of broadcaster TV 2 after discovering a suspicious package. Public broadcaster NRK showed video of a blackened car lying on its side amid the debris. An AP reporter who was in the office of Norwegian news agency NTB said the building shook from the blast and all employees were evacuated. Down in the street, he saw one person with a bleeding leg being led away from the area. An AP reporter headed to Utoya was turned away by police before reaching the lake that surrounds the island, as eight ambulances with sirens blaring entered the area. Police blocked off roads leading to the lake. Emilie Bersaas, identified by Sky News television as one of the youths on the island, said she ran inside a school building and hid under a bed when the shooting started. “At one point the shooting was very, very close [to] the building, I think actually it actually hit the building one time, and the people in the next room screamed very loud,” she said. “I laid under the bed for two hours and then the police smashed a window and came in,” she said. “It seems kind of unreal, especially in Norway. This is not something that could happen here.” One of the youths at the camp, Niclas Tokerud, stayed in touch with his sister through the attack through text messages. “He sent me a text saying ‘there’s been gunshots. I am scared (expletive). But I am hiding and safe. I love you,”‘ said Nadia Tokerud, a 25-year-old graphic designer in Hokksund, Norway. As he boarded a boat from the island after the danger had passed he sent one more text: “I’m safe.” The United States, European Union, NATO and the UK, all quickly condemned the bombing, which Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague called “horrific” and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen deemed a “heinous act.” “It’s a reminder that the entire international community has a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring,” President Barack Obama said. Obama extended his condolences to Norway’s people and offered U.S. assistance with the investigation. He said he remembered how warmly Norwegians treated him in Oslo when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. Nobel Peace Prize Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland said it appeared the camp attack “was intended to hurt young citizens who actively engage in our democratic and political society. But we must not be intimidated. We need to work for freedom and democracy every day.” Although police would not speculate on who was responsible for Friday’s attack or whether international groups were involved, Norway has been grappling with a homegrown terror plot linked to al-Qaeda. Two suspects are in jail awaiting charges. Last week, a Norwegian prosecutor filed terror charges against an Iraqi-born cleric for threatening Norwegian politicians with death if he is deported from the Scandinavian country. The indictment centreed on statements that Mullah Krekar – the founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam – made to various news media, including American network NBC. Terrorism has also been a concern in neighbouring Denmark since an uproar over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad six years ago. Danish authorities say they have foiled several terror plots linked to the 2005 newspaper cartoons that triggered protests in Muslim countries. Last month, a Danish appeals court on Wednesday sentenced a Somali man to 10 years in prison for breaking into the home of the cartoonist.
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
Several victims "had pretended as if they were dead to survive," Berzingi said. But after shooting the victims with one gun, the gunman shot them again in the head with a shotgun, he said. Very gruesome and cold blooded. Revenge killing, but revenge for what?
Obama's watch stopped on 24 May 2008, but he's been too busy smoking crack to notice.
At a hotel in the village of Sundvollen, where survivors of the shooting were taken, 21-year-old Dana Berzingi wore pants stained with blood. He said the fake police officer ordered people to come closer, then pulled weapons and ammunition from a bag and started shooting.
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul
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