The enemy within

OSLO

THE worst in people has brought out the best in people. Staid, proper Oslo, faced with atrocity, has become a city of flowers. A bright circle of blooms on the cobblestones outside the city’s cathedral has swelled by the day; sheets of blossoms float in fountains; roses are tucked lovingly onto statues and signposts.
The pilgrimages continued all this week, long past the 200,000-strong “March of flowers” remembrance on Tuesday night. Most trams going into the city centre carry grown-ups and children clutching bouquets. Each laying of flowers is a small, individual gesture. But it is also part of a wider expression of two emotions shared by the rest of Norway: grief over the 76 lives destroyed by gunman Anders Behring Breivik, and the peaceful defiance of a people who refuse to be cowed.
Well, those emotions are shared by most of the rest of Norway. The western city of Fored, on the other hand, this week found itself tagged with triumphant Nazi swastikas. Jailing Breivik is not going to solve all the ugly problems exposed by his ideologically driven violence; not in Norway, and not in Europe.
While Breivik’s bloody slaughter of teenagers at a summer camp was repugnant to all decent people, it is also true that a good proportion of decent people quietly share some of his political views. Support for right-wing politics is on the rise across Europe, fuelled by economic hard times and fear of Islam. A rise in the number of extremists on its fringe is expected as a result.
Breivik had intended his massacre to be a “wake-up call” to Europe about what he saw as the danger of a Muslim takeover. Instead it has become a different kind of wake-up call, warning a Europe that had been preoccupied with the threat of Islamic terror that blond, Christian, home-grown threats can be just as deadly.
Many Norwegians say the only comfort over the lone-gunman massacre eight days ago is that Breivik must be crazy, a freak of nature, a psychopath; a product not of politics and culture but of a murderously disordered mind. “He could not possibly be sane and do what he has done,” one person after another will tell you.
But those who study such things say this isn’t so. The “lone-wolf” terrorist is rarely mad or psychopathic, says Will Hartley, the editor of Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre in Washington.
“Terrorists tend to be better adjusted [psychologically] than the average. They often have a surfeit of qualities that would otherwise make them respectable, such as empathy and the ability to act altruistically. Their background is often surprising — with the 7/7 bombings in London, one of the terrorists was a social worker who worked with children.”
A terrorism expert at the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Affairs, Helge Luras, says Breivik’s internet manifesto suggests he pumped himself full of steroids to heighten his aggression, and listened to music through earphones so he would not be moved by the pleas of his victims: “So he’s not a psychopath or lacking in emotion or empathy. In the manifesto he talks about how it will be difficult to kill these people in this manner because he has empathy. Psychopaths don’t struggle with that.”
Breivik’s meticulous planning over nine years, and his attention to detail, suggest he is well and truly in touch with the real world, if markedly paranoid. Some analysts see him as a man who became a killer not because he was overcome by any emotion but because he made a logical decision that this was the best way to spread his ideas.
“Breivik was doing a mass murder as a form of fundamentalist PR,” says Matthew Feldman, lecturer in history at the University of Northampton in Britain and an expert on the extreme right wing.
He is convinced Breivik killed to get publicity for his online manifesto and video, posted just hours before he set off a car bomb and hunted teenagers with a sub-machinegun. “If he had posted them two weeks earlier, they would have sunk without trace. It was a publicity stunt. At the same time, the documents, video and killings were the first salvo in what he thought would be a European civil war.”
Feldman sees the fundamentalist Breivik, calling on heroic figures from Christianity’s distant past, as the Western equivalent of the Muslim terrorist: believing that ideas are more important than human life, that violence will lead to revolutionary change, and that martyrs must offer their lives in defence of their besieged culture. “It’s a kind of crusading ‘Christianism’ that is the mirror image of jihadi Islamism,” he told The Saturday Age.
According to his 1500-page manifesto — much of it cut and pasted from other writers — Breivik believes that European governments are allowing Muslims to take over Europe through mass immigration that is diluting the culture. He claims to be part of an organisation called the Knights Templar dedicated to fighting for Europe. The original Knights Templar was a military organisation during the mediaeval Crusades to take the Holy Land back from Muslims.
His manifesto suggests he killed the young people of Norway’s Labour Party at their summer camp on Utoeya island because Labour deserved “the death penalty” for its multicultural policies and friendly approach to immigration, which were a “betrayal” of Europe. He predicts that continued immigration will lead to civil war and history’s third expulsion of Muslims from the continent.
Analysts concede that, even within the bizarre world of terrorism, Breivik is an unusual specimen. Most terrorists work in groups, partly because it is mutual reinforcement that leads to the gradual acceptance of radical ideas, and partly because competitive dynamics help push individuals into violence. But while police are investigating Breivik’s claims of two more cells, and of international contact with bodies such as the English Defence League — denied by the league — it seems at this stage that he conceived and carried out his massacre alone.
Hartley says this suggests he is highly self-reliant and has a massive ego, full of the importance of his own ideas, like America’s Unabomber. “He’s not mentally ill but he may have delusional fantasies. He likes to picture himself in the uniform and cross of the Knights Templar; there is an element of role-play, of conveying himself as knight in a long line of European crusader heroes who fought for their religion.”
He warns that solo operators such as Breivik are almost impossible to detect in time: “The lone-wolf terrorist is far, far harder to track unless he makes mistakes. The first you hear of him is when he carries out his first attack.”
Which is a big problem, because European police have been warning that exactly this kind of terrorist is becoming more likely, created by a new and volatile combination of factors: the technology of the internet, and a right-wing backlash across Europe focused on immigration, unemployment and national identity.
The internet provides the would-be terrorist with anonymity, global reach on information and the ability to spread material quickly and widely. Feldman says there have been two recent right-wing, lone-wolf cases in England, one involving a member of the white-supremacist Aryan Strike Force who made the deadly chemical ricin. “With the right amount of dedication, a credit card and a modem, you can make weapons of mass destruction from your home computer.”
Breivik claims he learnt how to make a car bomb by spending 200 hours on the internet in two weeks.
In Europe, Islamism has been the major focus of terror fears since September 11. Europol’s 2011 report on terrorism warned of a continuing “high and diverse” threat of Islamist terrorists, with 179 arrests in 2010 over plots to cause mass casualties. This was a 50 per cent increase on the year before. And it warned that more “lone actors with EU citizenship” were becoming involved in Islamist terrorism, with fewer plots controlled by leaders from outside the EU.
But the Europol report also said the threat of right-wing extremists was intensifying, and noted: “If the unrest in North Africa leads to a major influx of immigrants into Europe, right-wing terrorism might gain a new lease of life by articulating more widespread apprehension about immigration.”
Immigration is a focus of every mainstream right-wing party in Europe, although most have worked hard to eradicate any clear sign of racism. “Very few contemporary right-wing movements play with race,” Hartley says. “It is the fringe of the fringe. The mainstream has tried to move beyond that. Once you drop race and start focusing on levels of immigration, that concerns a much broader segment of society. That’s what’s behind their growth.”
Of course, the left argues that debating immigration is simply “dog-whistle politics”: those being called recognise it as code for “race”. But among extremists, Feldman says, there is no room for doubt: “The 20-century scapegoating of Muslims is something everyone on the far right can agree on.”
Far right parties have become a more powerful presence in mainstream politics across a range of countries. In Russia, says Hartley, “they are conventional nationalists, against migration from the former Soviet socialist republics”.
In Britain, “The British National Party has actually secured seats on councils and things like that, and is much closer to giving the conventional parties a run for their money in elections.”
It seems paradoxical, but the old left is part of the new far right. Hartley says most members of the BNP are “traditional Labour voters who no longer feel Labour is protecting their interests in terms of multiculturalism and the erosion of salaries. The right-wing parties are benefiting from being able to portray themselves as representatives of disenfranchised workers”.
Britain also has the English Defence League, cited by Breivik as an organisation he connected with, which has chapters in many European countries and a Norwegian Facebook page with 13,000 members, says Feldman. “The EDL is perhaps less uncompromising in its ideology, but that doesn’t stop hundreds of working-class young white men putting their hoodies up and shouting slogans on English streets.”
A sense of an in-group that is being economically threatened by an out-group is central to the resentment of far-right activists in Britain, while nationalist ideas are more the focus in Europe, according to research by Matthew Goodman, an associate fellow at Chatham house.
He interviewed one British far-right activist who said of migrants, “They’re getting post offices, shops, takeaways . . . The government’s way of dealing with deprived areas is by giving the biggest regeneration grants to the poorest areas . . . They’re winning hands down every time. We haven’t got a chance . . . So they’re getting their houses done up . . . new windows, new doors, new kitchens . . . they’re making people angry.”
And another: “They [mainstream politicians] don’t know what it’s like to live cheek by jowl with a Polish person, a Lithuanian person, an African person and then fight for a job.”
On the continent, far right-wing groups are gaining traction from Hungary to Italy, but their rise is particularly apparent in northern European countries such as Norway that previously had liberal immigration policies.
The rapid arrival of refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants, many of them Muslims, led to a significant backlash in Denmark, where the Danish People’s Party has 25 out of 179 seats in parliament, and the Netherlands, where Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom won 15.5 per cent of the vote in the 2010 general election. Wilders once compared the Koran, the holy book of Islam, to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. In Sweden, a man was arrested last November in the city of Malmo in connection with more than a dozen unsolved shootings of immigrants, including one fatality. The far-right Sweden Democrats entered parliament for the first time last September after winning 5.7 per cent of the vote.
The far right is getting better at recruitment in the digital age. Europol spokesman Gerald Hesztera told The Saturday Age that right-wing extremists are now more professional in their use of the internet, with stylish websites and clever use of social media.
“White Power” music groups hold concerts organised over the internet that attract hundreds of young people to listen to xenophobic songs with hate-filled lyrics, he says. “They have a general ideology of white supremacy and they are rock groups with a racist, sometimes fascist, orientation. Right-wing skinheads go to these concerts all over Europe,” he says.
On Oslo’s streets the racial mix is clear. Along with the ethnic Norwegians are Africans, Arabs, Indians and Pakistanis, as well as stateless Romany, who have drifted across from Eastern Europe.
Norway tends to see itself as an open, democratic, inclusive society of tolerance and shared values. Not everyone there agrees. One man of Pakistani background, who did not want to be named, says he is second-generation Norwegian but is preparing his children, who are third-generation, for the fact they will be made to feel like outsiders in their homeland. “They will get to school and be seen as Pakistanis and Muslims, as foreigners. If a person can function in a society, can follow the rules, can work and go to school, they are part of the society even if they have a different skin colour or religion or culture. That’s my opinion. But there are a lot of Norwegian politicians who want you to go and hold a sausage in your hand and want your woman in a bikini and only then are you part of the society.”
He was one of several Norwegians privately to express relief this week that the killer had not been a Muslim because that might have led to social fracture.
Forty-nine per cent of Norwegians questioned in a recent poll said they thought immigration had gone too far and too fast, says Helge Luras. This is not a reaction to immigration but the way it has always been in Norway. “People said pretty much the same thing in a poll in ’87,” he says.
Luras says he is not right-wing, and that he angered the right because he always argued that the threat of Islamic terrorism in Norway was overblown. But he does urge caution over immigration, simply on the basis of human nature’s historical intolerance of difference.
“This is not just something peculiar to Europe. This need for group cohesion and the issue of borders is so ingrained in humans. It ensured our survival in the very early phases. This is still with us and it creates problems in a phase of globalisation, but we are genetically what we were 20,000 years ago. I’m not saying that’s how it should be, but that is more or less how it is. We have to adapt our political and social system to the reality.”
He formed views partly while working “for a long time in the Balkans, with a multi-ethnic society that collapsed into civil war because of people’s perceptions of difference in identity and [economic problems]. This dynamic of finding scapegoats has been part of human affairs ever since we have been studying them.”
He says every culture has a threshold of tolerance for newcomers that varies over place and time: “If there’s massive unemployment, even if it’s not to do with immigration, then at the same time you have the immigration of large groups of people who live in separate neighbourhoods, definitely that’s a factor of instability and could lead to conflict.”
The Progress Party now holds about a quarter of seats in Norway’s parliament and is seen to have increased its support because of its criticism of immigration, which has become more restricted as politicians began to take note of the public mood. This week, the party — which is not as far to the right as those in other nations — was at pains to distance itself from Breivik, who was a member when he was younger. Breivik wrote that he left both the Progress Party and the English Defence League because he found them inadequate.
Himanshu Gulati is a 23-year-old Norwegian of Indian background who is vice-president of the Progress Party’s youth wing. He told The Saturday Age that it had less of a focus on immigration than conservative parties in other countries, and that its concerns were more about failures of integration, such as female mutilation and forced marriages.
Gulati said his party had been distraught over the massacre: “Even though we disagree with the Labour Party we do agree on core values and principles, and what this crazy guy has done is against what we all stand for. I am part of the Progress Party’s youth movement and all of us know many people who were on Utoeya. Most of the youth politicians of all parties have been there. They invited us to debates in their summer camp and we invited them to ours. We have all had the worst week of our lives, no matter which party we belong to.”
In typically Norwegian fashion — political debate here is strong, but so is the tradition of consensus — leaders of all the main parties agreed to suspend partisan politics for several weeks, and this week met at the Progress Party’s headquarters to discuss how best to manage the election coming up in September.
ANDERS Behring Breivik wanted to change the course of history. He thought he would light a fuse that would set fire to Europe. Opinion is divided on what effect, if any, he will have on the future.
Hartley says he has damaged the mainstream right wing because now some of its rhetoric is linked with his violence: “He reminds everyone of what they have been trying to bury, and now the right is being tarred as racist in the media because of his focus on Muslims.”
But Breivik could turn out to be inspirational to some who, like him, feel the system is rigged against the right and prevents ordinary people from expressing views considered politically incorrect, says Hartley.
Luras says the drivers for far-right-wing support — stagnating economies and pressure on borders — will continue, and Europe should be “prepared and concerned” about its rise. “It doesn’t mean that it would lead to terrorism but my sense at the moment is that Mr Breivik is the beginning of what may be a cult figure for some. He has described in detail how the movement should arise to be inspired by himself, and some will be inspired.”
Luras says the level of hero-worship will depend on whether Breivik cracks in prison: “If he can keep up the appearance that he is superhuman, able to stand completely on his own, still believing in himself even though he is in a cell, then the cult will definitely be created.”
And if that should happen, “I will be very surprised in 10 years if, looking back, not a single terrorist act has occurred connected to Mr Breivik.”

International hunt for ‘cells’ linked to Breivik

English far-right group spurns killer
OSLO
INTERPOL and Scotland Yard are investigating claims by mass killer Anders Breivik that two other cells of people were working with him on his terrorist anti-Muslim crusade.
Interpol has asked Scotland Yard for more officers as it trawls through its database of known high-risk extremists, after Breivik boasted to police of links to far-right groups in Britain, including the English Defence League.
British Prime Minister David Cameron ordered a review of all far-right groups and said the claims of accomplices were being taken seriously.
Mr Cameron denied there had been complacency about right-wing extremism, pointing out it was mentioned in the government’s official terrorism strategy and in a speech he made in Munich in February.
Breivik, who has admitted killing 76 people in a car bomb and shooting spree last week, claimed in an internet manifesto that he and other activists had met in London to set up a group called the Knights Templar — named after a military order from the time of the Crusades — to fight a perceived Islamic takeover of Europe.
He had also written that he had strong links with the EDL. He claimed he had met its leaders and had members as Facebook friends.
Breivik could face a crime-against-humanity charge, which entails a 30-year prison sentence, Oslo police spokesman Sturla Henriksbo said yesterday. Breivik has been charged with two counts of “acts of terror”, which entail a 21-year sentence.
London’s Daily Telegraph reported an anonymous senior member of the EDL saying he believed Breivik had met the group’s leaders when he visited Britain to hear right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders. “He is someone who can project himself very well, and I presume there would be those within the EDL who would be quite taken by that.
“It’s like Hitler; people said he was hypnotic. This guy had the same sort of effect.”
But officially the EDL and other such groups quickly moved to distance themselves from Breivik.
The EDL issued a statement condemning the killings, denying links with Breivik and insisting that it was a peaceful body that rejected extremism.
Breivik’s estranged father Jens, a retired Norwegian diplomat living in France, tried to distance himself, too. “I don’t feel like his father. How could he just stand there and kill so many innocent people and just seem to think that what he did was OK? He should have taken his own life too,” he said.
The death toll was revised down to 76 after police said they believed some bodies had been counted twice.
Police admitted Breivik had come to their attention in March after buying large quantities of fertiliser, an ingredient in bombs. No action was taken because the purchase was legal and he had a farm, giving him a legitimate use for it.
About 100,000 people yesterday joined a procession in central Oslo, carrying flowers to mourn the victims and marching to defy what is being interpreted as an attack on the country’s democratic values.
Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said: “By taking part, you are saying a resounding ‘yes’ to democracy.”

Breivik expected to die during his rampage: lawyer

NORWEGIAN MASSACRE
OSLO
ANDERS BEHRING BREIVIK is an emotionally detached man who is surprised no one intervened in the Norwegian massacre and bomb blast he orchestrated, his lawyer says.
“He expected that he would be stopped earlier by police or somebody else,” the defence lawyer Geir Lippestad said yesterday. “He was surprised that he reached the island.”
Mr Breivik expected to be killed after the bombing or during the shooting spree, Mr Lippestad said. It was too early to say whether he was insane.
He described Mr Breivik as “a very cold person” who may have been mentally unwell at the time of the killings.
“This whole case has indicated that he’s insane,” Mr Lippestad said. Even so, “we still have to see the medical reports”.
His client had a view of reality that was difficult to explain. “He believes that he’s in a war and when you’re in a war, he believes you can do things like that.”
Interpol and Scotland Yard are investigating claims that two other cells of people were working with him on his anti-Muslim crusade.
Interpol has asked Scotland Yard for more officers as it trawls through its database of known high-risk extremists after Mr Breivik boasted to police of links in Britain, including the English Defence League (EDL).
It also emerged Mr Breivik was investigated by police in March for a purchase of chemicals but the inquiry was dropped. The incident was judged too insignificant to warrant a follow-up, the head of the Police Security Service, Janne Kristiansen, said.
The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, ordered a review of all far-right groups and said the claims of accomplices were being taken “extremely seriously”.
Mr Breivik, who has admitted killing 76 people in a car-bomb and shooting spree last week, claimed online that he and other activists had met in London to set up a group called the Knights Templar to fight a perceived Islamic takeover of Europe.
He had also written that he had strong links with the EDL. He claimed he had met its leaders and had members as Facebook friends.
The Daily Telegraph reported an anonymous senior member of the EDL saying he believed Mr Breivik had met the group’s leaders when he visited Britain to hear the right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders.
“He is someone who can project himself very well, and I presume there would be those within the EDL who would be quite taken by that,” the league member said. “It’s like Hitler; people said he was hypnotic. This guy had the same sort of effect.”
But officially the EDL and other such groups quickly moved to distance themselves from Mr Breivik. The EDL issued a statement condemning the killings and denying links with him.
Mr Breivik’s estranged father, Jens, a retired Norwegian diplomat living in France, tried to distance himself, too. He told reporters, “I don’t feel like his father. How could he just stand there and kill so many innocent people and just seem to think that what he did was OK? … He should have taken his own life, too. That’s what he should have done.”
The death toll was revised down to 76 after police said they believed some bodies had been counted twice in the initial chaos after the massacre.
Ms Kristiansen said Mr Breivik had come to police attention after buying large quantities of fertiliser, an ingredient in bombs. No action could be taken because the purchase was legal and he had a farm, giving him a legitimate use for it.
Police said they were considering charging Mr Breivik with crimes against humanity, which would carry a maximum prison sentence of 30 years, more than the current 21 years he faces for terrorism-related charges.
First published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

As police hunt for Breivik colluders, lost chance rued

NORWEGIAN MASSACRE
OSLO
INTERPOL and Scotland Yard are investigating claims by the mass killer Anders Behring Breivik that two other cells of people were working with him on his terrorist anti-Muslim crusade.
Interpol has asked Scotland Yard for more officers as it trawls through its database of known high-risk extremists after Mr Breivik boasted to police of links in Britain, including the English Defence League (EDL).
It also emerged Mr Breivik was investigated by Norwegian police in March for a purchase of chemicals but the probe was dropped. The incident was judged too insignificant to warrant a follow-up, the head of the Norwegian Police Security Service, Janne Kristiansen, said.
The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, ordered a review of all far-right groups and said the claims of accomplices were being taken “extremely seriously”.
He denied there had been complacency about right-wing extremism, pointing out that it was mentioned in the government’s official terrorism strategy and in a speech he made on the issue in Munich in February.
Mr Breivik, who has admitted killing 76 people in a car-bomb and a shooting spree last week, claimed in an internet manifesto that he and other activists had met in London to set up a group called the Knights Templar to fight a perceived Islamic takeover of Europe.
He had also written that he had strong links with the EDL. He claimed he had met its leaders and had members as Facebook friends.
The Daily Telegraph reported an anonymous senior member of the EDL saying he believed Mr Breivik had met the group’s leaders when he visited Britain to hear the right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders.
“He is someone who can project himself very well, and I presume there would be those within the EDL who would be quite taken by that,” the league member said. “It’s like Hitler; people said he was hypnotic. This guy had the same sort of effect.”
But officially the EDL and other such groups quickly moved to distance themselves from Mr Breivik. The EDL issued a statement condemning the killings, denying links with him and insisting that it was a peaceful body that rejected extremism.
Mr Breivik’s estranged father, Jens, a retired Norwegian diplomat living in France, tried to distance himself, too. He told reporters, “I don’t feel like his father. How could he just stand there and kill so many innocent people and just seem to think that what he did was OK? … He should have taken his own life, too. That’s what he should have done.”
The death toll was revised down to 76 after police said they believed some bodies had been counted twice in the initial chaos after the massacre.
Ms Kristiansen said Mr Breivik had come to police attention after buying large quantities of fertiliser, an ingredient in bombs. No action could be taken because the purchase was legal and he had a farm, giving him a legitimate use for it.
“In March, we received … a list of 50 to 60 names and his name was on it because he spent 120 krone ($20) at a business in Poland,” she said.
Police said they were considering charging Mr Breivik with crimes against humanity, which would carry a maximum prison sentence of 30 years, more than the current 21 years he faces for terrorism-related charges.
The prosecutor Christian Hatlo told Tuesday’s Aftenposten the new charge was “a possibility”.
An estimated 100,000 people joined a vigil and procession in central Oslo yesterday, marching to defy what is being interpreted as an attack on the nation’s democratic values.
Crown Prince Haakon told the crowd, “Tonight the streets are filled with love.”
First published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Norway killer boasts of more ‘solo martyr cells’

OSLO
THE Norwegian mass-killer Anders Behring Breivik claims he is part of a network of up to 80 “solo martyr cells” of people wanting to overthrow Western governments that tolerate Islam.
Only hours before the attacks on Friday that killed at least 93 people, Mr Breivik emailed a 1500-page “manifesto” to 5700 people.
Intelligence forces are now investigating whether he had accomplices. Fears of copycat crimes are rising.
Scotland Yard is examining Mr Breivik’s claims that he began his “crusade” against “the Islamic colonisation of Europe” after meeting other right-wing extremists in London in 2002. In his manifesto he said any member of a political group that had allowed Muslims to migrate deserved death for being “multiculturalist traitors”.
The manifesto says the meeting called itself the “European Military Order and Criminal Tribunal” of the Knights Templar. British authorities have noted increased internet chat by a group using that name.
The original Knights Templar was a military organisation during the Crusades, the religious wars Christians fought to wrest control of the Holy Land from Muslim hands.
The manifesto has raised questions about why authorities failed to detect Mr Breivik’s preparations and has triggered a debate about whether Europe has been too relaxed about the threat of right-wing extremism.
The manifesto, entitled 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, documents his meticulous planning starting in 2002.
Mr Breivik crowed that police had failed to identify him as a suspect. After his arrest he told them he acted alone but they are investigating witness statements that refer to more than one gunman.
A spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office refused to comment on whether police were seeking accomplices.
Mr Breivik was expected to plead not guilty at a custody hearing overnight, despite having confessed to the bombing and the massacre. His lawyer, Geir Lippestad, told the Norwegian broadcaster NRK: “He thought it was gruesome having to commit these acts, but in his head they were necessary.”
Mr Lippestad has said Mr Breivik wants to wear a uniform to the hearing and for the session to be public. He had written that trials could provide a “propaganda base”.
But the hearing is to be closed. The court will be asked to double the length of time Mr Breivik can be held in custody to eight weeks.
During questioning, Mr Breivik said he had intended to shoot the former prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland on the island of Utoya earlier in the afternoon but he was delayed, the Aftenposten newspaper reported, citing police sources.
The director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King’s College London, John Bew, said there had been a lack of focus on right-wing extremism, with research on Islamism often taking precedence.
“We have looked at lone wolves in relation to Islamism but I think we haven’t taken far-right extremism seriously enough,” Dr Bew said.
Meanwhile, 100 Red Cross volunteers in 32 boats are helping police in the search for up to five people who remain missing on Utoya.
First published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

In tears and torment, a peaceful people stands strong

NORWEGIAN MASSACRE
OSLO: Khalid Hussain is living proof – if anyone should need it – that mass killer Anders Breivik is wrong about what it is to be Norwegian.
Mr Hussain joined the thousands of people who streamed quietly into the centre of Oslo to put flowers and candles outside its 17th-century cathedral.
They stood mostly in silence, rain streaming from coats and umbrellas, laying bouquets on the cobblestones in a growing circle of remembrance.
Mr Hussain had come to offer a single red rose; an artificial one because, as he says so practically, all the others will die soon but his will stay.
He was born and raised in Norway after his father settled in Oslo from Pakistan in 1970. Now 37 and a web designer, he speaks with the same eloquence as his prime minister about what the massacre and the racist ideology of its perpetrator means for this suddenly wounded nation.
“This is a tragedy for the whole of Norway. Whenever anyone tries to harm democracy, it doesn’t matter what skin colour you are or what nationality, it’s every person’s duty to show solidarity.”
But while he recognises the political overtones of Mr Brievik’s rantings on the internet, Mr Hussain does not think the gunman’s slaughter was primarily political: “This person is disturbed. I don’t think any sane person could do something like that.”
Joran Kallmyr of the right-wing, anti-immigration Progress Party on Sunday denied his party had helped form Mr Breivik’s ideas (he had once been a member): “He joined our party to have a platform for his ideas. He was disappointed in our party. We didn’t fit his ideas so he left.”
Mr Breivik claimed to be part of a group that intended to seize “political and military control of Western European countries and implement a cultural conservative political agenda”. He wrote, “it is better to kill too many than not enough, or you reduce the ideological impact of the strike”.
Norway spent Sunday grieving that strike, for the 93 people who died. Queen Sonja arrived at the cathedral in tears and during the memorial service she and King Harald both wiped more away. Survivors sobbed and embraced. Outside, parents lifted small children over the shoulders of the crowd to see the flowers so they could be part of the moment. Henrik Vaaler, 21, visits elderly people who are confined to their homes. He says, “They have said all their nightmares about the war have come back.” He was at the cathedral with his mother, Anne, a doctor. She says, “I have three sons and I’m just so grateful.” She stops, suddenly in tears, and lifts a hand to her trembling mouth.
Dr Vaaler says she is relieved the perpetrator was not found to be a member of an Islamist terrorist group: “It forces us to think harder about ourselves, rather than channel hatred outwards.”
Like Mr Hussain — like most Norwegians — the Vaalers feel disbelief this has happened in their peaceable country.
First published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Norway killer copycat fears

OSLO
NORWEGIAN mass killer Anders Behring Breivik claims he is part of a network of up to 80 “solo martyr cells” of people wanting to overthrow Western governments that tolerate Islam.
Following the revelation of a 1500-page “manifesto” Breivik emailed only hours before the attacks on Friday that killed at least 93 people, intelligence agencies are investigating whether he had accomplices, as fears of copycat crimes have risen across Europe.
Scotland Yard is investigating Breivik’s claims that he began his “crusade” against “the Islamic colonisation of Europe” after meeting other right-wing extremists in London in 2002.
He wrote that any member of a political group who had allowed Muslims to migrate deserved death for being “multiculturalist traitors”.
The manifesto says the meeting called itself the “European Military Order and Criminal Tribunal” of the “Knights Templar”.
British authorities have noted increased internet chatter by a group using that name.
The original Knights Templar were a military order in the Crusades.
The manifesto has raised questions about why Norwegian authorities failed to detect his preparations, which began up to eight years ago. It has also triggered a debate about whether Europe has been too relaxed about the threat of right-wing extremism.
The manifesto, which he emailed to 5700 people just hours before he detonated the Oslo car bomb, is entitled “2083: A European Declaration of Independence”. It documents Breivik’s meticulous planning.
Between 2002 and 2006 he raised money and moved in with his mother to save more, and trained and took steroids to build up his strength.
In 2009, he bought a farm as a cover for buying fertiliser, a key ingredient in bombs. This year, he bought weapons, including a semi-automatic rifle and a pistol.
He crowed that police had apparently failed to flag him as a suspect.
After his arrest he told police he acted alone, but they have been investigating witness statements from the island that spoke of more than one gunman. A spokeswoman for the Norwegian public prosecutor’s office last night refused to comment on whether police were looking for accomplices.
Breivik was expected to plead not guilty at a custody hearing overnight despite having confessed to the bombing and the massacre.
His lawyer, Geir Lippestad, told Norwegian broadcaster NRK: “He thought it was gruesome having to commit these acts, but in his head they were necessary.”
Mr Lippestad has said Breivik wanted to wear a uniform to the custody hearing and wanted the session to be public.
Breivik had written that trials could provide a “propaganda base”.
But state prosecutor Christian Hatlo would ask the judge to close the session, the Oslo court said last night.
Mr Hatlo will ask the court to double the time Breivik can be held in custody to eight weeks.
During questioning, Breivik said he had intended to shoot former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland during her presentation on the island in the afternoon but he was delayed, the Aftenposten reported, citing police sources.
The director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King’s College London, Dr John Bew, said there had been a lack of focus on right-wing extremism, with research into Islamism often taking precedence.
Norwegian security officials have refused to comment on whether they were aware of Breivik as a potential threat but police have revealed more about why it took them nearly an hour to get to Utoeya island, site of the massacre of 86 teenagers, following the first call for help.
Eric Berga, police operations chief in Buskerud County, said an inadequate boat and the wait for a special armed unit from Oslo slowed the response.
“When so many people and equipment were put into it, the boat started to take on water, so that the motor stopped,” he said.
Breivik had written of using dum-dum bullets to cause maximum injury. Norwegian surgeons confirmed he used a similar kind of ammunition on Friday.
“These bullets more or less exploded inside the body,” said Dr Colin Poole, of Ringriket Hospital.
Norway last night observed a minute’s silence to remember the victims.
About 100 Red Cross volunteers in 32 boats were helping police in the search for up to five people who were still missing.
First published in The Age.

Norway killer faces court

OSLO
Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik claims he is part of a network of up to 80 ‘solo martyr cells’ of people wanting to overthrow Western governments that tolerate Islam.
The fear that he could send coded messages to associates was reportedly behind the judge’s order that Breivik’s Oslo District Court appearance last night be closed to the public and the media. Police also feared he might be lynched.

The armoured Mercedes that brought Breivik, 32, to the court’s back entrance for the remand hearing was attacked by a crowd, it was reported.

The hearing was over less than an hour after his arrival.

District Court president Feir Engebretsen said the next hearing would be in four or eight weeks. Asked if the maximum penalty of 21 years was too short for this crime, Mr Engebretsen said there was a legal possibility Breivik could be jailed for longer.

Following the revelation of a 1500-page ”manifesto” that Breivik emailed only hours before the attacks on Friday that killed at least 76 people, intelligence agencies are investigating whether he had accomplices, as fears of copycat crimes have risen across Europe.

Scotland Yard is investigating Breivik’s claims he began his ”crusade” against ”the Islamic colonisation of Europe” after meeting other right-wing extremists in London in 2002.

He wrote that any member of a political group who had allowed Muslims to migrate deserved death for being ”multiculturalist traitors”.

The manifesto says the meeting called itself the ”European Military Order and Criminal Tribunal” of the ”Knights Templar”. UK authorities have noted increased internet chatter by a group using that name.

The manifesto, which Breivik emailed to 5700 people just hours before he detonated the Oslo car bomb, is entitled 2083: A European Declaration of Independence.

It documents his meticulous planning. Between 2002 and 2006 he raised money and moved in with his mother to save more, and trained and took steroids in order to build up his strength.

In 2009, he bought a farm as a cover for buying fertiliser, a key ingredient in bombs. This year, he bought weapons.

After his arrest he told police he acted alone, but they have been investigating witness statements that spoke of more than one gunman.

A spokeswoman for the Norwegian public prosecutor’s office last night refused to comment on whether police were looking for accomplices.

Breivik was expected to plead not guilty at a custody hearing overnight despite having confessed to the bombing and the massacre.

Breivik’s lawyer, Geir Lippestad, has said he wanted to wear a uniform to the custody hearing and wanted it to be public. Breivik had written that trials could provide a ”propaganda base”.

During questioning, Breivik said he had intended to shoot former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland during her presentation on the island where the shootings took place, but she was delayed, the Aftenposten reported, citing police sources.

Norwegian security officials have refused to comment on whether they were aware of Breivik as a potential threat but police have revealed more about why it took them nearly an hour to get to Utoya island, site of the massacre of 86 teenagers, following the first call for help.

Eric Berga, police operations chief in Buskerud County, said an inadequate boat and the wait for a special armed unit from Oslo slowed the response. ”When so many people and equipment were put into it, the boat started to take on water, so that the motor stopped,” Mr Berga said.

Breivik had written of using dum-dum bullets to cause maximum injury.

Norwegian surgeons confirmed he used a similar type of ammunition.

”These bullets more or less exploded inside the body,” said Dr Colin Poole, of Ringriket Hospital.

Norway last night observed a minute’s silence for the victims.

About 100 volunteers in 32 boats were helping police in the search for up to five people who were still missing.

First published in WA Today.

Red rose says it all as a nation mourns

NORWAY MASSACRE
OSLO
KHALID Hussain is living proof — if anyone should need it — that mass killer Anders Breivik is wrong about what it is to be Norwegian.
Mr Hussain joined the thousands of people who streamed quietly into the centre of Oslo to put flowers and candles outside its 17th century cathedral.
They stood mostly in silence, rain streaming from coats and umbrellas, laying bouquets on the cobblestones in a growing circle of remembrance.
Mr Hussain had come to offer a red rose; an artificial one because, as he says so practically, all the others will die soon but his will stay.
He was born and raised in Norway after his father settled in Oslo from Pakistan in 1970. Now 37 and a web designer, he speaks with the same eloquence as his Prime Minister about what the massacre and the racist ideology of its perpetrator mean for this suddenly wounded nation.
“This is a tragedy for the whole of Norway,” he said. “I just had to come here. It’s a sign of solidarity. Whenever anyone tries to harm democracy, it doesn’t matter what skin colour you are or what nationality, it’s every person’s duty to show solidarity.”
But while he recognises the political overtones of Breivik’s rantings on the internet, Mr Hussain does not think the gunman’s slaughter was primarily political. “This person is disturbed,” he said. “I don’t think any sane person could do something like that.”
Norway spent Sunday grieving for the 93 people who died. Queen Sonja arrived at the cathedral in tears and during the memorial service she and King Harald wiped more away. Survivors sobbed and embraced. Outside, parents lifted small children over the shoulders of the crowd to see the flowers so they could be part of the moment.
Henrik Vaaler, 21, visits elderly people who are confined to their homes. “They have said all their nightmares about the war have come back,” he said.
He was at the cathedral with his mother Anne, a doctor. “I have three sons and I’m just so grateful . . .” She stops, suddenly in tears, and lifts a hand to her trembling mouth.
Dr Vaaler said she was relieved the perpetrator was not found to be an Islamist terrorist group. “It forces us to think harder about ourselves, rather than channel hatred outwards,” she said.
Joran Kallmyr, of the right-wing anti-immigration Progress Party, on Sunday denied the party had helped form Breivik’s ideas, though he had once been a party member.
“He joined our party to have a platform for his ideas,” he said. “He was disappointed in our party. We didn’t fit his ideas, so he left.”
First published in The Age.

Calculated attack on future of nation’s left wing

HE IS a man of vision. Anders Behring Breivik did not kill just any group of teenagers. He targeted the Norwegian Labour Party’s next generation of leaders.
Every year since 1974, teenagers interested in left-wing politics had gathered at the summer camp on the idyllic island of Utoya to play, debate and meet political leaders. This is where the party shaped its idealistic young. The Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, remembers it as “the paradise of my youth”.
Mr Breivik, the man who has admitted he slaughtered at least 86 of those young people and seven more in the Oslo bomb blast in what is the bloodiest day of Norway’s peacetime history, has told his lawyer the killings had been “gruesome but necessary”. He said he is willing to explain what he has done, and why, when he appears in court for a custody hearing today.
The explanation is likely to involve racial hatred and a twisted sense of nationalistic mission.
The Oslo police chief, Sveinung Sponheim, told reporters Mr Breivik had confessed and will co-operate with the hearing but said he is not accepting criminal responsibility.
Police have not ruled out accomplices, and last night six people were briefly detained and later released after an armed raid at a property in the east of the country’s capital. Reports suggest officers were trying to access chemical containers at the address.
Most mass killers are crazed; Mr Breivik, according to a manifesto he wrote on the internet, also had a political framework. In Norway his attack is being seen not just as a slaughter of innocents but as an assault on racial tolerance and the consensual values of “the Scandinavian way”.
Norwegians are appalled not just by the scale of the bloodshed but by the careful preparations leading up to it. “This thing on the island is truly sickening because the calculation which appeared to go into it is truly evil,” Erik Olsen, 44, told the Herald.
Mr Olsen had mistakenly thought he was at the centre of Friday’s violence. A public servant in the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, he works opposite the 10-storey building that houses the prime minister’s offices in the centre of Oslo. At 3.26pm on Friday he heard a large, clear crack, like an immense champagne cork popping. It became a deep boom as the soundwaves radiated out, he learnt later, shattering windows blocks away.
It felt to him like the building jumped. His window exploded inwards and a wardrobe on the other side of the office fell down. When he reached the corridor outside, it was full of rubble and clouded with smoke and dust. He says it was then he recognised the look of this: it was the September 11, 2001, look.
He and others made their way downstairs and into the street. Buildings looked as if their facades had been scraped off. “Everything was jagged and hanging loose … It looked like those pictures from New York.” Others have described bloodied bodies on the ground and torsos hanging out of windows. Seven people died and 30 were injured. But that afternoon reports emerged about Utoya, and Mr Olsen started to recognise the extent of the carnage: “It became apparent that we were the sideshow.”
It appears the car bomb was a distraction, a decoy. It also provided a ploy for Mr Breivik to disarm his initial victims and bought time for him to carry out his plans on the island.
Mr Breivik’s internet diary suggests he had been planning the attack for nearly two years. He had bought a property outside Oslo and registered a business growing vegetables. He bought six tonnes of fertiliser, a key ingredient in bomb-making.
Police believe he planted the car bomb and then drove a van to the edge of the mainland and took a ferry to Utoya.
There, many of the 600 youngsters were gathered in or around the main building, anxious for news about the bombing in the city. Mr Breivik was dressed like a policeman. He called out for them to gather around, he had news. And then he began to shoot them.
Some friends of Lisa Marie Husby, 19, had gone to greet him. Then she heard gunshots: “It was chaos and people were screaming ‘Run! Run! Run for your life!’”
She turned and fled the other way. “My friends came with me and we ran into the forest for about 500 metres with the man and the gun running behind us. We got to this cabin in the middle of the wood and then he turned and went back.”
Inside the cabin she lay under a bed with suitcase on top of her listening to more gunshots. The man came back and started shooting through the doors. She switched her mobile to silent and lay still, terrified that if he heard movement he would break in. After he left, three of her friends decided to run back to the main building. “I haven’t seen them or heard them now … everybody outside the main building was shot.”
A boy told the BBC that Mr Breivik was a methodical hunter. He checked out tents and shot their cowering occupants. Twenty or 30 were shot as they tried to swim away: “The weapons were so powerful that the jet of water was very high.”
Witnesses told Norwegian news agencies the gunman sprayed bullets into corpses, seeking out any who were still breathing. “It seemed he was enjoying it,” Magnus Stenseth, a youth leader, told the newspaper VG. “He walked around the island as if he had absolute power.”
The killing spree went on for nearly 90 minutes while the police response was delayed. They were dealing with the aftermath of the car bomb and had trouble getting a helicopter and boats.
At the weekend, police pulled 20 bodies from the water. Dozens of others were scattered around the water’s edge, covered in blankets. Yesterday a mini-submarine scoured the depths for eight or so still missing. The current death toll from the island is 86. It is expected to rise.
A criminal psychologist who profiles killers for British police and was the expert adviser for the television series Cracker has speculated that Mr Breivik was a well-disciplined man with a “slow-burn” rage against society.
Ian Stephen told London’s Telegraph that Mr Breivik’s background suggested “a very egocentric, narcissistic and disciplined man” likely to believe he was always right.
Mr Breivik is 32 and lived with his mother, who neighbours say doted on him. His estranged father said he was in shock.
“I was reading the online newspapers and suddenly I saw his name and picture,” the pensioner told a Norwegian newspaper from France, where he now lives. “It was a shock to learn about it. I have not recovered yet.” He claims to have had no contact with his son since 1995.
Mr Breivik did not shoot himself afterwards, as many mass killers do, Dr Stephen said: “It’s as if he takes satisfaction from seeing the results, and might take pleasure from being interviewed by police and getting to explain his beliefs.”
A professor of criminology at Birmingham City University, David Wilson, agreed: “This is not somebody who is ashamed of what he did.”
Others look not to the personal but to the political for explanations. Mr Breivik saw Norway’s immigration policy as lax. He apparently hated Muslims, left-wingers and the country’s political establishment.
He had previously been a member of the conservative Progress Party. The Progress Party has strengthened its position on the back of rhetoric about “sneak-Islamicisation”. It demands tighter immigration rules, whereas the centre-left government supports multiculturalism.
The young campers at Utoya were everything Mr Breivik disliked, politically and racially. The New York Times reported that many victims were the children of immigrants from Africa and Asia who had begun to stake out a greater role in Norwegian society.
Politicians have said the massacre must not be allowed to damage democracy.

First published in the Sydney Morning Herald.