Tragedy in Norway: Explosions, shootings injure or take lives of dozens

Inex­plic­a­ble, unex­pect­ed tragedy has struck again, this time in Nor­way:

Nor­way suf­fered dual attacks on Fri­day when pow­er­ful explo­sions shook the gov­ern­ment cen­ter here and, short­ly after, a gun­man stalked youths at an island sum­mer camp for young mem­bers of the gov­ern­ing Labor Par­ty. The police arrest­ed a Nor­we­gian in con­nec­tion with both attacks, which killed at least 87 peo­ple and stunned this ordi­nar­i­ly placid nation.

The explo­sions, from one or more bombs, turned Oslo, a tidy Scan­di­na­vian cap­i­tal, into a scene rem­i­nis­cent of ter­ror­ist attacks in Beirut or Bagh­dad or Okla­homa City, pan­ick­ing peo­ple and blow­ing out win­dows of sev­er­al gov­ern­ment build­ings, includ­ing one hous­ing the office of the Nor­we­gian prime min­is­ter, Jens Stoltenberg, who was unharmed.

Details are still com­ing togeth­er, but this def­i­nite­ly sounds like an act of ter­ror­ism. Media out­lets in Nor­way are report­ing that the alleged per­pe­tra­tor of the shoot­ing, thir­ty-two year old Anders Behring Breivik, had links with right wing extrem­ist groups (sur­prise, sur­prise). His res­i­dence has already been searched by police.

At this time, author­i­ties are not sure who was respon­si­ble for det­o­nat­ing the bombs. As men­tioned, police have Breivik in custody.

As the bombs in Oslo were going off, he was appar­ent­ly mak­ing his way to a Labour Par­ty sum­mer camp on Utøya, a pri­vate­ly owned island not far from the cap­i­tal, delib­er­ate­ly intend­ing to kill as many peo­ple as he could.

He report­ed­ly lured many of his vic­tims into shoot­ing range by pos­ing as a police­man and then open­ing fire on them when they got close.

What kind of human being does such a despi­ca­ble, evil thing?

At the White House, Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma offered his con­do­lences to the peo­ple of Nor­way in a joint appear­ance with New Zealand Prime Min­is­ter John Key.

“I remem­ber fond­ly my vis­it to Oslo and how warm­ly the peo­ple of Nor­way treat­ed me,” the Pres­i­dent said. “And so our hearts go out to them, and we’ll pro­vide any sup­port we can to them as they inves­ti­gate these occurrences.”

“I echo your sym­pa­thies and con­cern for that sit­u­a­tion in Nor­way,” Prime Min­is­ter John Key added moments lat­er when it was his turn to speak. “If it is an act of glob­al ter­ror­ism, I think what it shows is no coun­try, large or small, is immune from that risk. And that’s why New Zealand plays its part in Afghanistan as we try and join oth­ers like the Unit­ed States in mak­ing the world a safer place.”