Europe

Europe

Ethnic Norwegian believed behind deadly Friday attacks

23 July 2011 04:16 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The man arrested on Friday after at least 17 people were killed in two separate attacks in Norway is an ethnic Norwegian and is unlikely to have links to any international terrorist organizations, Norway’s public broadcaster NRK said, APA reports quoting RIA Novosti.

The two attacks carried out late on Friday - a bomb explosion at a government headquarters in Oslo and a shooting at a youth summer camp near the capital- sparked allegations that radical Islamists or terrorist groups were behind the bloodshed.

But police sources said Anders Behring Breivik, the 32-year-old Oslo resident, who was arrested on the Utoya island after killing at least 10 people at the youth camp, was likely to belong to right-extremist groups in eastern Norway, the TV2 channel said.

Friday’s attacks came unexpected for Norway, the home of the Nobel peace prize and one of the world’s most prosperous and stable societies.

At least seven people were killed when what seems to be a car bomb exploded on Friday afternoon at the government headquarters in central Oslo that hosts the office of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. Some two dozen people were injured, but the prime minister was unharmed.

Just hours after the attack on Oslo, Breivik, disguised as a police officer, opened fire at random at the youth camp. Police confirmed only ten deaths, but witnesses were quoted by media reports as saying they had seen at least 20 dead bodies at the camp.

A car containing explosives, which is believed to belong to Breivik, has been found on the Utoya island, police said.

Breivik has been questioned by police who have also searched his house to the west of Oslo. A Freemason, he is said to have been active on an Islam-critical website, according to NRK.

Norwegian Justice Minister Knut Storberget said police did not know whether the man acted alone or there were others involved in the attack.

The 32-year-old’s picture has been posted on the internet. It shows a blond, grey-eyed man with a small beard dressed in a black sweater over an orange shirt.

Breivik was once registered to have run a company cultivating "vegetables, melons, roots and tubers" - an industry where you can also get access to large amounts of chemical fertilizers, which can be used in explosives, NRK said.