OSLO — 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 16 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.
The state television broadcaster, citing the police, said seven people had been killed and at least 15 wounded in the explosions, which they said appeared to be an act of domestic terrorism.
Even as the police locked down a large area of the city after the blasts, a man dressed as a police officer entered the youth camp on the island of Utoya, about 19 miles northwest of Oslo, a Norwegian security official said, and opened fire. “He said it was a routine check in connection with the terror attack in Oslo,” one witness told VG Nett, the Web site of a national newspaper.
Norway's Oklahoma City'
The official said the attack "is probably more Norway's Oklahoma City than it is Norway's World Trade Center." Domestic terrorists carried out the 1995 attack on a federal building in Oklahoma City, while foreign terrorists were responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The official added, however, "it's still just hours since the incident happened. And the investigation is going on with all available resources."
At the youth camp, where the prime minister had been scheduled to speak Saturday, a 15-year-old camper named Elise said she heard gunshots, but then saw a police officer and thought she was safe. Then he started shooting people right before her eyes.
Stoltenberg, who was home when the blast occurred and was not harmed, visited injured people at the hospital late Friday. Earlier he decried what he called "a cowardly attack on young innocent civilians."
"I have message to those who attacked us," he said. "It's a message from all of Norway: You will not destroy our democracy and our commitment to a better world."
Sponheim would not give any details about the identity or nationality of the suspect, who was being interrogated by police.
Stoltenberg said "we don't want to speculate" on whether a terror group is responsible, and said some groups may take responsibility "to appear to be more important than they are."
The attacks formed the deadliest day of terror in Western Europe since the 2005 London bombings, which killed 52 people.
Police said the Oslo explosion occurred at 3:30 p.m. (1330 GMT) and was caused by "one or more" bombs.
Public broadcaster NRK showed video of a blackened car lying on its side amid the debris. An AP reporter who was in the office of Norwegian news agency NTB said the building shook from the blast and all employees were evacuated. Down in the street, he saw one person with a bleeding leg being led away from the area.
An AP reporter headed to Utoya was turned away by police before reaching the lake that surrounds the island, as eight ambulances with sirens blaring entered the area. Police blocked off roads leading to the lake.
Emilie Bersaas, identified by Sky News television as one of the youths on the island, said she ran inside a school building and hid under a bed when the shooting started.
"At one point the shooting was very, very close (to) the building, I think actually it actually hit the building one time, and the people in the next room screamed very loud," she said.
"I laid under the bed for two hours and then the police smashed a window and came in," Bersaas said. "It seems kind of unreal, especially in Norway. This is not something that could happen here."
One of the youths at the camp, Niclas Tokerud, stayed in touch with his sister through the attack through text messages.
"He sent me a text saying 'there's been gunshots. I am scared (expletive). But I am hiding and safe. I love you,"' said Nadia Tokerud, a 25-year-old graphic designer in Hokksund, Norway.
As he boarded a boat from the island after the danger had passed he sent one more text: "I'm safe."
The United States, European Union, NATO and the U.K., all quickly condemned the bombing, which Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague called "horrific" and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen deemed a "heinous act."
"It's a reminder that the entire international community has a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring," President Obama said.
Obama extended his condolences to Norway's people and offered U.S. assistance with the investigation. He said he remembered how warmly Norwegians treated him in Oslo when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.
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