More Than 90 Killed In Norwegian Shooting, Bombing

Update: 1.47 am Pacific, 26 July : the number killed has been revised downward to 76

Update, 2.40 am Pacific, 23 July via Twitter:

Utøya shooting eyewitnesses describe two gunmen – more @ http://t.co/qG4Hzan (in Norwegian) #news

According to Reuters, at least 84 young people were killed Friday at youth camp on Utoeya. In addition, seven victims were killed earlier when a bomb exploded outside government offices in Oslo Friday. [Sat Jul 23, 2011 3:36am EDT]

A 32 year old Norwegian, Anders Behring Breivik, was arrested for the massacre on Utoeya. Police have also linked him to the bombing.

“What we know is that he is right wing and he is Christian fundamentalist,” said Roger Andresen, a deputy police chief. “We have not been able to link him up to an anti-Islamic group.” He said that Breivik had not been arrested before. (WaPo)

Here’s a first-hand account from Utoeya by 23 year old Khamshajiny Gunaratnam (via BjornJarle):

Suddenly I saw all the security guys running upwards telling us “to hide”, “run into the main building” etc. I ran to the loos just by the AUF-shop. The shots came closer. I was quite sure that this was some “joke”, but you can nevner know for sure, as today has shown us. The seconds in that loo were horrible. Slowly but surely I managed to set my mobile to silent and put it in my bra so I wouldn´t lose it. I took of my purse and put it on the floor. When I finally heard a familiar voice I came out.

[...]

Trond Agnar suddenly appeared. He said that severeal had tried to swim, but had returned because it was too cold, too far, too difficult simply. But do you know what? I´d rather drown than be shot. Sorry. I took my shirt off, and by Matti´s encouragement started swimming. It got heavy, so I had to remove my trousers too. Soo cold.

I swam. Matti saved me. He said the right things and he did the right things. He made me swim – SO far. When we´d swam some distance Matti said: “Kamzy, don´t look back. Look towards the land on the other side and think that that´s your goal.”

“Ok” I said. We heard shots all the time, and I´m still surprised that me or Matti didn´t get hit. (But, I was told later that he stood there. That was why Matti told me to look straight ahead. He stood exactly in the spot where we´d just been hiding. My God! Nad he´d tried to shoot at us. We were hunted.

Updated: Another first-person account by Adrian Pracon, who was not successful in swimming away.

Oh. And Murdoch’s British tabloid, The Sun, outdid itself with it’s “Al-Qadea Massacre” … and was wrong, wrong, wrong (via @ hatai ):

Update, 3.03 am Pacific. It’s not just Murdoch. Here’s The Weekly Standard in a blog post time-stamped 3:32 PM, JUL 22, 2011.

We don’t know if al Qaeda was directly responsible for today’s events, but in all likelihood the attack was launched by part of the jihadist hydra.

No correction.

Then there’s the Washington Post, also a blog post, time-stamped 05:06 PM ET, 07/22/2011:

[T]here is a specific jihadist connection here: “Just nine days ago, Norwegian authorities filed charges against Mullah Krekar, an infamous al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist who, with help from Osama bin Laden, founded Ansar al Islam – a branch of al Qaeda in northern Iraq – in late 2001.”

This is a sobering reminder for those who think it’s too expensive to wage a war against jihadists.

No correction. (Tip to James Fallows)

UPDATE:An ABC report on the shootings: