http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/07/22/norway.explosion/

(CNN) -- Norway came under deadly attack Friday with a massive bombing in the heart of its power center and a shooting at the ruling party's youth camp on an island outside the capital.

At least seven people were killed in the blast in Oslo and at least nine were killed on Utoya Island, which is about 20 miles away, police said.

Police spokesman Are Frykholm told CNN that a man arrested on the island appeared to match the description of a person who was seen near the government buildings shortly before the bomb erupted.

The man was wearing a police emblem on his blue sweater, though he does not work for police, Frykholm said.

Oslo University Hospital reported receiving 11 people seriously wounded by the attack in the capital and eight others wounded in the camp shooting.

The prime minister, whose office was badly damaged in the Oslo blast, leads Norway's Labour Party, which runs the youth camp.

On northern Utoya Island, a man dressed as a policeman fired shots at the Labour Party Youth Camp, where about 700 people were in attendance, NRK said. Witnesses described a scene of chaos.

Oslo Mayor Fabian Stang said it was a "terrible day" for Norwegians.

An Oslo police spokesman said the explosion was caused by a bomb.

Several buildings were damaged, many of the windows of the government tower that houses the prime minister's offices were blown out.

Vivian Paulsen, media adviser for the Norwegian Red Cross, lives 20 minutes from the center of Oslo in its northern outskirts. "I heard the big bang; I didn't think it was anything serious; I can still see smoke coming up from the place," she said from her apartment balcony. She also heard sirens and ambulances.

As for Oslo, she said what others have been saying: Events like this don't happen in the northern European capital.

"There's occasional arrests of terror suspects we read about in the paper, or people planning something."

Reports conflicted on whether a second blast followed the first, which occurred mid-afternoon.

"We don't know if this comes from a terrorist action; we don't know yet," said the police spokesman. "We don't know exactly how many explosions (there) were yet. Oslo center has been evacuated."

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was not in his office at the time of the blast and was not hurt, he said.

Hans Kristian Amundsen, state secretary of Norway, told CNN late in the day that the prime minister "is now working."

Nick Soubiea, an American-Swedish tourist in Oslo, said he was fewer than 100 yards from the blast, which he described as deafening. "It was almost in slow motion, like a big wave that almost knocked us off our chairs," he told CNN. "It was extremely frightening."

He said the streets filled with people trying to get away from the city center. "There are people running down the streets, people crying, everyone's on their cell phones calling home," he said.

Several buildings in Oslo were on fire, smoke billowing from them, he said.

Walter Gibbs, a journalist with Reuters, said he saw eight people who had been wounded, two seriously; one appeared dead.

Gibbs said one explosion appeared to have occurred on an upper floor of a main government building; every window on the side of the building had been blown out.

The blast also severely damaged the Oil Ministry and left it in flames, he said.

A U.S. official said it was too soon to tell what caused the explosion or whether it was a terrorist attack. The possibility of terrorism is always a concern because of the ongoing threat from al Qaeda to launch attacks in Europe, the official said.

But others appeared to have concluded that it was indeed terrorism.

In brief remarks to reporters from the Oval Office, U.S. President Barack Obama extended his condolences to the victims of the violence in Norway, saying the incidents are "a reminder that the entire international community has a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring."

Heide Bronke, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman, said Washington was monitoring the situation but did not have any word of U.S. casualties.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague also condemned the attacks.

"We condemn all acts of terrorism," he said. "The UK stands shoulder to shoulder with Norway and all our international allies in the face of such atrocities."

British Ambassador to Norway, Jane Owen, told CNN she was working in the embassy when she felt the blast three miles away. "The whole building shook here in the embassy," she said. "It was quite a sizeable explosion and a huge shock. ... The results demonstrate that it was a very large bomb."

She added, "As we have all experienced, you can never be totally prepared for the horror and the tragedy that unfolds when you do have a major terrorist incident and that is, unfortunately, what the people of Oslo and Norway are now having to cope with."

CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank said it was far too early to draw any conclusions on whether it was terrorism and, if so, who would have carried it out.

In recent months, he said, there has been increased "chatter" about Norway, which had been investigating militants suspected of being linked to al Qaeda.

Norway had drawn the ire of al Qaeda for publishing political cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that originally appeared in a Danish newspaper and sparked outrage in the militant Islamic community.

The Scandinavian country also plays a part in NATO's operation in Afghanistan, and now, in Libya.

Last December, an attempted suicide bombing in Stockholm shocked neighboring Sweden. But Norway has been largely spared acts of terrorism.

Last July, Norwegian authorities announced the arrests of three suspects in connection with an investigation into terrorist plots in New York and the United Kingdom.

The three were suspected of plotting attacks and having connections to al Qaeda, the prime minister's office said at the time.

Stoltenberg, who has been prime minister since October 2005, heads a coalition government comprising the Labour Party, the Socialist Left Party and the Centre Party.

CNN's Laura Smith-Spark, Joe Sterling, Moni Basu, Chelsea Bailey, Claudia Rebaza and Cynthia Wamwayi contributed to this report.

OMG!!!ive just seen it right now,im just watching some live pictures and its hard to imagine that someone somewhere did that to his fellow human beings!its just sad,my condolences and prayers to those affected.

A bad day in the land of my forefathers.

Very sad day.

sheds new light on the silly notion that 'if guns were outlawed, only outlaws would have guns.' here's a law abiding citizen who owns several guns legally and close to a hundred dead.

Norway police say 85 killed in island youth camp attack

At least 85 people died when a gunman opened fire at an island youth camp in Norway, hours after a bombing in the capital Oslo killed seven, police say.

Police have charged a 32-year-old Norwegian man over both attacks.

The man dressed as a police officer was arrested on tiny Utoeya island after an hour-long shooting spree.

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said many people were still looking for their children and had not so far been able to locate them.

He was speaking after meeting victims and relatives with Norway's King Harald, Queen Sonja and Crown Prince Haakon in the town of Sundvollen near the island.

Mr Stoltenberg said he was "deeply touched" by the meetings. "We will do whatever we can to give them as much support as possible," he said.

Earlier he said that he was due to have been on Utoeya - "a youth paradise turned into a hell" - a few hours after the attack took place.

The suspect is reported by local media to have had links with right-wing extremists. He has been named as Anders Behring Breivik. Police searched his Oslo apartment overnight and are questioning him.

The BBC's Richard Galpin, near the island which is currently cordoned off by police, says that Norway has had problems with neo-Nazi groups in the past but the assumption was that such groups had been largely eliminated and did not pose a significant threat.

Police say they are investigating whether the attacks were the work of one man or whether others helped.

"At Utoeya, the water is still being searched for more victims," deputy police chief Roger Andresen told reporters.

"We have no more information than... what has been found on [his] own websites, which is that it goes towards the right and that it is, so to speak, Christian fundamentalist."
Continue reading the main story
At the scene
image of Richard Galpin Richard Galpin BBC News, near Utoeya

A search is going on not just on the island itself, but also in the waters around it because a lot of people tried to escape by jumping in the water and trying to swim away. Even as they did that, eyewitnesses say, the gunman opened fire on them.

The chatter now is that it took the police an hour, if not an hour and a half, to actually get to the island. Of course that gave the gunman so much time to kill so many people.

Also crucially, the police were throwing all their resources at the huge bomb attack which had just taken place in the centre of Oslo.

But still, the question will be asked: Were there not police nearer to this area who could have moved in much more quickly?

Local media report that police are investigating claims by witnesses that a second person was involved, apparently not disguised in a police uniform.

A farm supply firm has confirmed selling six tonnes of fertiliser to Mr Breivik who is reported to have run a farming company. Speculation has been rife that fertiliser could have been used in the Oslo bomb.

'Posed as policeman'

The number killed in the island shooting spree, which is among the world's most deadly, had been put at 10 on Friday - but soared overnight. Hundreds of young people had been attending the summer camp organised by the governing Labour Party on Utoeya island.

Eyewitnesses described how a tall, blond man dressed as a policeman opened fire indiscriminately, prompting camp attendees to jump into the water to try to escape the hail of bullets.

Some of the teenagers were shot at as they tried to swim to safety.

Armed police were deployed to the island but details of the operation to capture the suspect remain unclear. After his arrest he was charged with committing acts of terrorism.

Police say they discovered many more victims after searching the area around the island. They have warned the death toll may rise further as rescue teams continue to scour the waters around the island.

The gunman is reported to have been armed with a handgun, an automatic weapon and a shotgun.

"He travelled on the ferry boat from the mainland over to that little inland island posing as a police officer, saying he was there to do research in connection with the bomb blasts," NRK journalist Ole Torp told the BBC.

"He asked people to gather round and then he started shooting, so these young people fled into the bushes and woods and some even swam off the island to get to safety."

One 15-year-old eyewitness described how she saw what she thought was a police officer open fire.

"He first shot people on the island. Afterward he started shooting people in the water," youth camp delegate Elise told Associated Press.


Anders Behring Breivik

Describes himself as a Christian and conservative on Facebook page attributed to him
Grew up in Oslo and attended Oslo School of Management
Set up farm through which he would have had access to fertiliser - which can also be used to make a bomb


More at the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14259356