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OSLO — The Norwegian man charged Saturday with a pair of attacks in Oslo that killed at least 92 people left behind a detailed manifesto outlining his preparations and calling for a Christian war to defend Europe against the threat of Muslim domination, according to Norwegian and American officials familiar with the investigation.
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Thomas Hegghammer, a terrorism specialist at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, said the manifesto bears an eerie resemblance to those of Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders, though from a Christian rather than a Muslim point of view. Like Mr. Breivik’s manuscript, the major Qaeda declarations have detailed accounts of the Crusades, a pronounced sense of historical grievance and calls for apocalyptic warfare to defeat the religious and cultural enemy.
“It seems to be an attempt to mirror Al Qaeda, exactly in reverse,” Mr. Hegghammer said.
According to the police, Mr. Breivik first drew security services to central Oslo when he exploded a car bomb outside a 17-story government office building, killing at least seven people.
Then he took a public ferry to Utoya Island, where he carried out a remarkably meticulous attack on Norway’s current and future political elite. Dressed as a police officer, he announced that he had come to check on the security of the young people who were attending a political summer camp there, many of them the children of members of the governing Labor Party.
He gathered the campers together and for some 90 hellish minutes he coolly and methodically shot them, hunting down those who fled. At least 85 people, some as young as 16, were killed.
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Mr. Romarheim said in some ways the homegrown nature of the attack made it harder for Norwegians to accept. “With 9/11 in America, people could ask, ‘Who are they?’ and could pour their rage out on someone else,” he said. “But we can’t disavow this person, he’s one of us.”
The man who has admitted to twin attacks that killed at least 76 people in Norway is likely "insane" and convinced he is at the vanguard of a decadeslong cultural war, according to the lawyer representing him. Oslo attorney Geir Lippestad described accused killer Anders Behring Breivik as a calm, cold man who had used drugs "to stay awake and strong" for the attacks, as neighbors and former acquaintances also added to a portrait of a reserved loner with delusions of grandeur.
Speaking at a Tuesday news conference, Mr. Lippestad said his client believed the massacre had been necessary to start a revolution. "He's in a war and thinks that the whole Western world doesn't understand his point of view, but that in 60 years' time we will all understand," Mr. Lippestad said of Mr. Breivik. His client has been charged with terrorist acts after confessing to detonating a bomb Friday that killed eight people in Oslo's city center and then launching a shooting spree on anearby island that killed at least 68.
Though Mr. Lippestad said it was early to say whether the 32-year-old Mr. Breivik would plead insanity, "the whole case indicated that he is insane," he said. "He has a view of reality that none of the rest of us share." None of Mr. Breivik's family had requested to see him so far, he added. The attorney's remarks came as the shaken Nordic nation continued to question how one of their countryman, raised in an affluent Oslo neighborhood and who evidently had planned the attacks for years, could have gone unnoticed.
Police in Oslo have also come under growing scrutiny for the time it took to apprehend Mr. Breivik on the island after the first call for help, allowing him to stalk and shoot terrified youth for an hour or more. Mr. Lippestad said that his client had expressed surprise at how long it took for police to stop him, adding that he had anticipated dying in the attacks. On Tuesday, Norwegian Justice Minister Knut Storberget defended the police, promising a review of their response to the shooting but hailing the police's "fantastic" work in the matter.
Mr. Storberget and police officials have also rejected suggestions they should have seen more red flags when Mr. Breivik's name appeared in March on an Interpol list of 50 to 60 Norwegians after he allegedly made a 120-kroner ($22) purchase from a Polish firm that sold chemicals. Police had cross-checked his name, but Mr. Breivik's records, which showed he had a registered farm, didn't cause them greater concern, they said.
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In an attempt to discredit the manifesto of accused murderer Anders Behring Breivik, Anonymous has unveiled its own campaign known as Operation UnManifest. The hactivist group's latest action is aimed at hacking into and modifying Breivik's "European Declaration of Independence" with the goal of republishing fake editions of the so-called manifesto everywhere online, thus turning Anders into a "joke." As part of Operation UnManifest, Anonymous also is calling for "a moment for the victims of his cruel attacks."
Breivik is accused of a bombing in Oslo last Friday, which he followed up with a shooting spree on the nearby island of Utoya that targeted youth attending a summer camp organized by the youth wing of the ruling Labor Party. The bombing killed eight people, while the attack on the youth camp resulted in 68 dead, according to CBS News, which said the government lowered the total number of dead from more than 90 initially. The attack has been described as the most violent day in Norway since World War II.
As justification, or what he called a "marketing campaign," for his actions, Breivik has cited a 1,500-page manifesto that he wrote aimed at ridding Europe of Muslims. The suspect's "2083 - European Declaration of Independence" calls for a revolution with guerrilla tactics and executions designed to keep Europe from Muslims.
"When I speak, I speak on behalf of millions of Europeans who do not want to see their culture and territorial rights taken from them, who do not want to live under current or future dhimmitude and who do not accept that their own leaders are selling them against their will to Islamic slavery," said one passage of the manifesto quoted by CBS News. Though Breivik has admitted to carrying out the attacks, he pleaded not guilty in a court appearance today.
Read more: Anonymous lashes out at Norway massacre suspect | Security - CNET News
The decision on Anders Behring Breivik's mental state will determine whether he can be held criminally liable and punished with a prison sentence or sent to a psychiatric ward for treatment. The July 22 attacks were so carefully planned and executed that it would be difficult to argue they were the work of a delusional madman, said Dr. Tarjei Rygnestad, who heads the Norwegian Board of Forensic Medicine. In Norway, an insanity defense requires that a defendant be in a state of psychosis while committing the crime with which he or she is charged. That means the defendant has lost contact with reality to the point that he's no longer in control of his own actions. "It's not very likely he was psychotic," Rygnestad told the AP.
The forensic board must review and approve the examination by two court-appointed psychiatrists before the report goes to the judge hearing the case. The judge will then decide whether Breivik can be held criminally liable. Rygnestad told the AP a psychotic person can only perform simple tasks. Even driving from downtown Oslo to the lake northwest of the capital, where Breivik opened fire at a political youth camp, would be too complicated. "If you have voices in your head telling you to do this and that, it will disturb everything, and driving a car is very complex," Rygnestad said.
"How he prepared" for the rampage - meticulously acquiring the materials and skills he needed to carry out his attack while maintaining silence to avoid detection - argues against psychosis, Rygnestad added. By his own account, the 32-year-old Norwegian spent years plotting the attack. On July 22, he set off a car bomb that killed eight people in downtown Oslo's government district, then drove north to a youth camp on Utoya, a small lake island set amid a quiet countryside of pines and spruces. There, he spent 90 minutes executing 69 people, mostly teenage members of the youth wing of Norway's governing Labor Party.
In a 1,500-page manifesto released just before the attacks, Breivik describes his two-pronged attack as the opening salvos of a new crusade that, by 2083, will purge Europe of Muslims and the "cultural Marxists" he complains are letting them have the run of the continent. Breivik, who is being held pending trial, has admitted to the facts of the case, but denies criminal guilt because he believes the massacre was necessary to save Norway and Europe, his defense attorney Geir Lippestad said, hinting at a possible insanity defense. "This whole case has indicated that he's insane," Lippestad told reporters last week. Lippestad did not return calls over the weekend seeking reaction to Rygnestad's comments.
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At about 3:30 p.m. on July 22, a car bomb blew out the windows in government buildings, rattling the offices of Norway's prime minister. Small fires burned inside buildings and injured employees stumbled into the debris-speckled streets of downtown Oslo. Then, news spread of a shooting on Utoya, an island northwest of the capital. Early reports described a tall, blond man spraying the island with gunfire as hundreds of young campers scattered in terror.
Police scrambled to cope with the attacks, both of which are unprecedented in a country known as one of the world's safest places, and early suspicion turned to jihadists. The media, including this paper, suggested the blast could be the work of Islamic extremists. After all, Norway was involved in Afghanistan and hosts a sizable and growing Muslim community. What came next turned everyone's best guess on its head and left Norwegians, who boast of their tolerant, open, and peaceful society, in a state of shock. The man admitting to the crimes was no Al Qaeda operative. Oslo resident Anders Behring Breivik is just the opposite.
A strike at the heart of society?
An ethnic Norwegian with an expressed hatred of Islam and Muslim immigrants and an affinity for far-right politics, Mr. Breivik stunned a nation by admitting to twin attacks that killed 77 Norwegians. Likening himself to a modern-day Crusader, Breivik claimed the attacks served as a wake-up call to Norwegians and the ruling Labour Party over his fears of Europe's "Islamization." But many Norwegians say Breivik's attack was no wake-up call at all but a strike at the heart of their society and national psyche. "He attacked everything this country stands for to the last detail," says Alexander Roine, a 20-something Oslo resident.
In the wake of the assault, a new resolve has emerged. While the attacks will undoubtedly be a defining moment for Norway, much like 9/11 was for the United States, the sentiment so far is that it will be remembered for Norway staying true to its ideals and resisting the urge to retreat under a blanket of tighter security and bigger barriers. Norway has distinguished itself as an international peace broker, aid donor, and giver of the Nobel Peace Prize, and will seek to retain that image. For example, officials have routinely stated they would not crack down on civil liberties, stifle opposing viewpoints, or break from longstanding legal procedures to safeguard the country.
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