What Do You Think?

[John.hergy]

As everyone knows there was a tragic event that happened Friday July 22, 2011 in Oslo, Norway. I am do wish to express my condolences to all the family and friends of the victims of this tragic and senseless event.

There has been a lot of unwarranted and to be honest unprofessional blame/finger pointing aimed recently on anti-jihad / anti-islamic / anti-terror groups by the media. This is the equivalent of saying that The Beatles caused the Manson murders.

There is a huge difference between a person that thinks he sees or hears something in music or written material that tells him to do some violent act and Imams that actively incite riots and encourage murders of people around the planet because their feelings got hurt, someone drew a picture, or someone burned a book.

That being said there are still some early press statements that caught my attention that are one-liners and not reported heavily.


Such as:

A muslim organization called Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami claimed responsibility for the attack.

And a statement in the person’s manifesto that said:

“An alliance with the Jihadists might prove beneficial to both parties,” Breivik wrote. “We both share one common goal.”

Apparently Breivik’s writings also implied that he had ideas of obtaining WMDs from jihadi terrorist groups for use against European targets. And emphasized that, “Knights Templar do not intend to persecute devout Muslims or enslave them under puppet leaders in their own Islamic countries like today’s EU/US leaders are doing.”

So I have to wonder if there is a LOT more to this guys motives and who might have helped financed him (all the stuff he used costs money at least two vehicles, apparently a lot of bomb material for the amount of damage, etc.).

Let’s follow the story and see what turns up.

But before everyone starts saying that non-muslims are just as bad as anything the jihadist do let us take a look at just the deadly attacks we know about that are associated to islam this month so far this month.



Date Country City Killed Injured
Description


2011.07.22 Dagestan Makhachkala 2 0
Islamic radicals murder two "non-believers" in a shooting attack.
2011.07.22 Afghanistan Greshk 1 0
Religious fundamentalists kidnap and hang the 8-year-old son of a local policeman.
2011.07.22 Iraq Baghdad 2 8
Two people are killed by shrapnel when fundamentalists bomb a liquor store.
2011.07.22 Pakistan Surjani 1 0
A Shiite doctor is shot to death by Sipah-e-Sahaba Wahhabis.
2011.07.20 Afghanistan Kandahar 3 0
Mujahideen attack a government building, killing at least three guards.
2011.07.20 Yemen Aden 1 0
A British businessman is killed in a targeted car bombing.
2011.07.19 Pakistan Landi Kotal 0 9
Islamic militants lob mortars into a town, injuring nine children playing cricket.
2011.07.19 Pakistan Charkhel 2 0
Religious radicals kill two hostages, burning a student and shooting the other civilian to death.
2011.07.19 Ghana Yamata 1 0
Calling the child "haram", a devout Muslim woman strangles a baby to death after finding out that it is illegitimate
2011.07.19 Thailand Pattani 2 2
Islamists bomb a group of men trying to protect teachers, killing two of the guards.
2011.07.19 Thailand Yala 1 15
Sixteen Thais are injured when terrorists set off a motorcycle bomb next to a school. One later dies of injuries.
2011.07.19 Pakistan Karachi 1 0
A shopkeeper is killed when two religious groups shoot at each other following a funeral.
2011.07.18 China Xingjian 4 1
Muslim separatists, chanting 'Allah is the only god', attack a police station, hack two officers to death and two murder two others, including a woman and a teenage girl.
2011.07.18 Pakistan Upper Dir 16 0
Video surfaces of sixteen police hostages brutally executed for "having left Islam."
2011.07.18 Afghanistan Farah 2 0
The Taliban send the beheaded bodies of two hostages to their families.
2011.07.17 Afghanistan Kabul 2 0
Taliban terrorists break into a home and shoot two people to death.
2011.07.17 Thailand Yala 3 0
'Insurgents' pull up in a truck and open fire at point blank range on three vendors waiting to buy materials, killing all three.
2011.07.17 Iraq Mosul 3 0
A woman is among three people machine-gunned to death at a police checkpoint.
2011.07.17 Afghanistan Baghlani Jadid 2 7
Islamic militants open fire on a wedding party, killing two guests.
2011.07.17 Pakistan Mann Talab 1 0
A peace committee volunteer is tied to the back of a car and dragged to death by Lashkar-e-Islam.
2011.07.17 Iraq Mosul 3 0
Mujahideen murder a man, his wife, and their child with grenade shrapnel.
2011.07.16 Pakistan Boshehra 11 0
Three women and a baby are among ten Sunnis shot at point blank range while sitting in a family van by suspected Shias.
2011.07.16 Iraq Karbalah 2 26
Sunni motorcycle bombers murder two Shia pilgrims.
2011.07.16 Afghanistan Lashkar Gah 1 0
A NATO soldier is shot in the back by a terrorist in an Afghan uniform.
2011.07.16 Afghanistan Sangin 5 1
Two children are blown to bits in their mini-bus along with three members of the family by religious hardliners.
2011.07.16 Iraq Baghdad 2 8
Mujahid bombers take out two Iraqis riding a bus.
2011.07.16 Algeria Bordi Menaiel 4 15
A pair of al-Qaeda suicide bombers kill four people, including rescue personnel rushing to help victims of the first blast.
2011.07.16 Dagestan Gedzhukh 1 0
A village head dies from injuries suffered from a Muslim shooting attack.
2011.07.15 Iraq Karbalah 6 20
Women are among six Shiite pilgrims sent to Allah by Sunni bombers.
2011.07.15 Thailand Pattani 1 2
'Insurgents' shoot a Buddhist teen to death in front of his mother at a supermarket.
2011.07.15 Iran Tehran 1 0
A prominent athlete is stabbed to death after 'insulting' the country's religious leader.
2011.07.14 Iraq Kirkuk 1 0
Sunni gunmen murder a civilian outside his home.
2011.07.14 Afghanistan Kandahar 6 15
A suicide bomber detonates at a memorial service at a mosque, killing six mourners, including a child.
2011.07.14 Pakistan Chaman 4 9
Three children are among four killed when a hidden chache of terrorist explosives detonates near their home.
2011.07.14 Pakistan Zengara 3 3
Islamists execute a person for stealing and blow up two security personnel in a separate attack.
2011.07.13 India Mumbai 20 131
An opera house and two other commercial areas are targeted by Religion of Peace bombers. Twenty are killed and over a hundred more maimed.
2011.07.13 Afghanistan Tagab 6 7
Five French soldiers guarding a local council meeting are among six killed by a Shahid suicide bomber.
2011.07.13 Iraq Mosul 3 1
A woman and taxi driver are killed in separate bomb attacks while Mujahideen also gun down a farmer.
2011.07.13 Thailand Pattani 2 0
Two Buddhist brothers working as construction workers are brutally murdered by Muslim gunmen.
2011.07.12 Pakistan Bajaur 2 9
Women and children are among the casualties when radicals send a shell into a family home.
2011.07.12 Iraq Abu Ghraib 2 4
A Fedayeen suicide bomber takes out two Iraqis.
2011.07.12 Iraq Karbalah 2 19
Terror blasts at two gas stations leaves two dead.
2011.07.12 Afghanistan Kandahar 1 0
The Taliban take credit for the assassination of the president's brother by a trusted bodyguard.
2011.07.11 Pakistan Quetta 2 0
Two truck drivers are murdered by Taliban snipers.
2011.07.11 Pakistan Battagram 7 19
Children are among seven people disassembled by a Shahid suicide bomber at a political rally.
2011.07.11 Thailand Narathiwat 2 0
Husband and wife laborers are brutally shot to death in their car by Muslim 'insurgents.'
2011.07.11 Iraq Rutba 3 0
A Sunni imam and his two brothers are beheaded by Religion of Peace rivals.
2011.07.11 Pakistan Bara 1 2
Muslim militants roll a hand grenade into a house, killing at least one occupant.
2011.07.11 Indonesia West Nusa Tenggara 0 0
A bomb explodes at an Islamic boarding school, apparently killing the trainer.
2011.07.11 Thailand Pattani 1 0
A 62-year-old man is murdered by Muslim terrorists while on a cigarette run.
2011.07.11 Thailand Pattani 1 0
A teacher is gunned down by Islamic 'insurgents' while drinking tea at a shop.
2011.07.11 Nigeria Maiduguri 3 0
Hardliners detonate a bomb under a van, killing three occupants.
2011.07.11 Pakistan Khyber 2 0
Two men are killed when Islamists riddle their car with bullets.
2011.07.10 Pakistan Quetta 3 0
Three Shias are gunned down by Sunni extremists.
2011.07.10 Pakistan Peshawar 2 4
Two policemen are killed by Taliban bombers.
2011.07.10 Pakistan Karachi 2 0
A youth and woman are kidnapped and tortured to death by suspected sectarian rivals.
2011.07.10 Nigeria Suleija 3 0
At least two women are among three Christians killed by a Boko Haram bomb detonated outside a church.
2011.07.09 Iraq Baqubah 2 17
Planted bombs leave two Iraqis dead.
2011.07.09 Pakistan Mastung 1 0
A truck driver is murdered by Talibanis.
2011.07.09 Thailand Yala 1 0
A 47-year-old schoolteacher is shot to death by Islamic 'insurgents'.
2011.07.09 Dagestan Sovetskoye 1 0
A school principal is labeled an "adversary of Islam" and murdered for opposing hijabs in school.
2011.07.09 Pakistan Jawakai 5 11
Islamic militants fire on civilian vehicles, killing five passengers including a father and son.
2011.07.09 Dagestan Karamakhi 1 0
A moderate cleric is gunned down during evening prayer by radicals.
2011.07.08 Iraq Jurf al-Sakhar 2 0
Two civilians are killed by suspected al-Qaeda gunmen.
2011.07.07 Iraq Fallujah 3 6
Mujahideen take down three civilians with a car bomb.
2011.07.07 Iraq Baqubah 1 1
An Islamic drive-by shooting in front of their house leaves a woman dead and her husband injured.
2011.07.06 Yemen Loder 10 0
al-Qaeda militants ambush and execute ten local soldiers in cold blood.
2011.07.06 Afghanistan Kamdesh 38 7
Women are among three dozen Afghans who lose their lives to a vicious Taliban assault on two police posts.
2011.07.06 Pakistan Karachi 10 20
Sectarian Jihadis pump machine-gun fire into a couple of buses, ending the lives of ten innocents.
2011.07.06 Dagestan Makhachkala 3 6
Two civilians are among three killed when Islamic snipers fire on a police vehicle.
2011.07.06 Iraq Baqubah 2 19
A Shahid suicide bomber takes out two Iraqis.
2011.07.06 India Sopore 1 6
Islamists set off a bomb outside a police station, killing an officer.
2011.07.05 Pakistan Quetta 9 20
The Taliban is suspected of staging three attacks on local security personnel that leaves nine dead.
2011.07.05 Nigeria Maiduguri 2 0
Two local cops are shot to death by Boko Haram cadres.
2011.07.05 Iraq Taji 35 54
Two Fedayeen suicide bombers blast three dozen Iraqis to bits as the victims are waiting in line for ID cards.
2011.07.05 Pakistan Mamond 1 0
Hardliners send a peace committee member to Allah by planting a bomb outside his house.
2011.07.05 Pakistan Miranshah 3 14
Islamists kill three security personnel with a landmine attack.
2011.07.05 Pakistan Karachi 2 0
Two people are kidnapped and beheaded by sectarian rivals.
2011.07.05 Iraq Kirkuk 3 0
Three Iraqis are gunned down by al-Qaeda.
2011.07.04 Pakistan Mamond 1 1
Sunni militants attack a checkpoint, killing a local soldier.
2011.07.04 Iraq Baghdad 26 9
Over two dozen Iraqis are taken down by Mujahid in various attacks around the country.
2011.07.04 Afghanistan Helmand 1 0
A British soldier is snatched by the Taliban and murdered in captivity.
2011.07.04 Algeria Kabylie 1 1
Armed fundamentalists fire on two traffic cops, killing one.
2011.07.03 India Mubarikpur 1 1
A young couple is dragged out of a mosque and beaten by their enraged families. The woman dies.
2011.07.03 Afghanistan Zabul 13 33
Four women and two children are among thirteen cut to shreds by a Taliban bomb blast.
2011.07.03 Nigeria Maiduguri 10 13
Thirteen people at a tavern are sent to Allah by Islamist bombers.
2011.07.03 Pakistan Shangla 3 1
Three defenders are killed when Muslim radicals attack a police post.
2011.07.03 Pakistan Lindhi 1 13
One person is killed during a violent dispute between two group of members over control of a mosque.
2011.07.03 India Saharanpur 2 0
Two sisters are shot to death by their brother on suspicion of immoral activities.
2011.07.03 Afghanistan Maimana 0 17
A terrorist on a motorbike tosses a grenade at a school, injuring seventeen children.
2011.07.03 Iraq Rutba 10 1
Ten Iraqi cops are killed in separate terror attacks.
2011.07.03 Yemen Zinjibar 10 24
Ten local soldiers are killed during an al-Qaeda ambush.
2011.07.03 Algeria Chebilia 0 24
Dozens of innocent people, including children, choke on smoke or are beaten by fundamentalists who attack an apartment building suspected of housing prostitutes.
2011.07.03 Pakistan Sindh 1 0
An imam is murdered in a sectarian attack.
2011.07.03 Pakistan Pakhtunkhwa 1 3
One person is killed in two attacks by fundamentalists, one on the house of a faith healer.
2011.07.03 Afghanistan Logar 19 0
Nineteen road construction laborers are machine-gunned by the Taliban.
2011.07.02 Nigeria Maiduguri 9 0
Boko Haram go house to house, shooting victims. At least nine die.
2011.07.02 Sudan Pariang 3 17
The Islamic Republic bombs a village in the south, killing three civilians.
2011.07.01 Philippines Maguindanao 1 0
Muslim rebels are suspected of aerating a local mosque caretaker with shrapnel.
2011.07.01 Pakistan Karachi 7 7
A second day of clashes between two religious groups leaves seven more dead.
2011.07.01 Pakistan Peshawar 2 0
Two civilians are abducted and executed by Islamic militants.
2011.07.01 Algeria Nacira 1 2
Fundamentalists kill one Algerian with a planted bomb.
2011.07.01 Afghanistan Maruf 6 6
Islamists blow up two people riding a donkey and then two more rushing to their aid.


Yes the person and people involved with the Norway attacks need to be punished, but at the same time let us not loose site of who and where the terrorist are that threaten all free societies.

[John.hergy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/23/world/europe/23oslo.html?hp

At Least 80 Dead in Norway Shooting

By ELISA MALA and J. DAVID GOODMAN
Published: July 22, 2011


OSLO — A lone political extremist bombed the government center here on Friday, killing 7 people, the police said, before heading to an island summer camp for young members of the governing Labor Party and killing at least 80 people.

The police arrested a 32-year-old Norwegian man in connection with both attacks, the deadliest on Norwegian soil since World War II.

The explosions in Oslo, from one or more bombs, turned the tidy Scandinavian capital into a scene reminiscent of terrorist attacks in 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, the suspect, 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.

Of the at least 80 people killed on the island, some were as young as 16, the police said on national television early Saturday.

Terrified youths jumped into the water to escape. “Kids have started to swim in a panic, and Utoya is far from the mainland,” said Bjorn Jarle Roberg-Larsen, a Labor Party member who spoke by phone with teenagers on the island, which has no bridge to the mainland. “Others are hiding. Those I spoke with don’t want to talk more. They’re scared to death.”

Many could not flee in time.

“He first shot people on the island,” a 15-year-old camper named Elise told The Associated Press. “Afterward he started shooting people in the water.”

Most of the campers were teenagers but there were also adults on the island, who may have been among the victims.

After the shooting the police seized a 32-year-old Norwegian man on the island, according to the police and Justice Minister Knut Storberget. He was later identified as Anders Behring Breivik and characterized by officials as a right-wing extremist, citing previous writings including on his Facebook page.

The acting police chief, Sveinung Sponheim, said the suspect’s Internet postings “suggest that he has some political traits directed toward the right, and anti-Muslim views, but if that was a motivation for the actual act remains to be seen.”

He said the suspect had also been seen in Oslo before the explosions. The police and other authorities declined to say what the suspect’s motivations might have been, but many speculated that the target was Mr. Stoltenberg’s liberal government.

“The police have every reason to believe there is a connection between the explosions and what happened at Utoya,” the police said. They said they later recovered explosives on the island.

Mr. Breivik had registered a farm-related business in Rena, in eastern Norway, which the authorities said allowed him to order a large quantity of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, an ingredient that can be used to make explosives. Authorities were investigating whether the chemical may have been used in the bombing.

A Facebook page matching his name and the photo given out by the police was set up just a few days ago. It listed his religion as Christian, politics as conservative. It said he enjoys hunting, the video games World of Warcraft and Modern Warfare 2, and books including Machiavelli’s “The Prince” and George Orwell’s “1984.”

There was also a Twitter account apparently belonging to Mr. Breivik. It had one item, posted last Sunday: “One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests.”

As the investigations continued, the police asked people to leave the center of Oslo, stay indoors and limit their cellphone use. They also said they would initiate border checks.

The attacks bewildered a nation better known for its active diplomacy and peacekeeping missions than as a target for extremists.




http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/23/world/europe/23oslo.html?pagewanted=2&hp


At Least 80 Dead in Norway Shooting
Published: July 22, 2011


(Page 2 of 2)

In Oslo, office workers and civil servants said that at least two blasts, which ripped through the cluster of modern office buildings around the central Einar Gerhardsen plaza, echoed across the city in quick succession around 3:20 p.m. local time. Giant clouds of light-colored smoke rose hundreds of feet as a fire burned in one of the damaged structures, a six-story office building that houses the Oil Ministry.


The force of the explosions blew out nearly every window in the 17-story office building across the street from the Oil Ministry, and the streets on each side were strewn with glass and debris. The police combed through the debris in search of clues.

Mr. Stoltenberg’s office is on the 16th floor in the towering rectangular block, whose facade and lower floors were damaged. The Justice Ministry also has its offices in the building.

Norwegian authorities said they believed that a number of tourists were in the central district at the time of the explosion, and that the toll would surely have been higher if not for the fact that many Norwegians were on vacation and many more had left their offices early for the weekend.

“Luckily, it’s very empty,” said Stale Sandberg, who works in a government agency a few blocks down the street from the prime minister’s office.

After the explosions, the city filled with an unfamiliar sense of vulnerability. “We heard two loud bangs and then we saw this yellow smoke coming from the government buildings,” said Jeppe Bucher, 18, who works on a ferry boat less than a mile from the bomb site. “There was construction around there, so we thought it was a building being torn down.”

He added, “Of course I’m scared, because Norway is such a neutral country.”

American counterterrorism officials cautioned that Norway’s own homegrown extremists, with unknown grievances, could be responsible for the attacks.

Initial reports focused on the possibility of Islamic militants, in particular Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami, or Helpers of the Global Jihad, cited by some analysts as claiming responsibility for the attacks. American officials said the group was previously unknown and might not even exist.

There was ample reason for concern that terrorists might be responsible. In 2004 and again in 2008, the No. 2 leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, who took over after the death of Osama bin Laden, threatened Norway because of its support of the American-led NATO military operation in Afghanistan.

Norway has about 550 soldiers and three medevac helicopters in northern Afghanistan, a Norwegian defense official said. The government has indicated that it will continue to support the operations as long as the alliance needs partners on the ground.

Terrorism specialists said that even if the authorities ultimately ruled out Islamic terrorism as the cause of Friday’s assaults, other kinds of groups or individuals were mimicking Al Qaeda’s brutality and multiple attacks.

“If it does turn out to be someone with more political motivations, it shows these groups are learning from what they see from Al Qaeda,” said Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism researcher at the New America Foundation in Washington. “One lesson I take away from this is that attacks, especially in the West, are going to move to automatic weapons.”

Muslim leaders in Norway swiftly condemned the attacks. “This is our homeland, this is my homeland,” said Mehtab Afsar, secretary general of the Islamic Council of Norway. “I condemn these attacks, and the Islamic Council of Norway condemns these attacks, whoever is behind them.”

[John.hergy]

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/272558/ansar-al-jihad-al-alami-claims-oslo-bombing-responsibility-charlie-cooke


Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami Claims Oslo Bombing Responsibility
July 22, 2011 2:37 P.M.
By Charlie Cooke

In response to today’s bombing and shootings in Norway, Oistein Mjarum, head of communications for the Norwegian Red Cross, told the BBC:

“We have never had a terrorist attack like this in Norway — if that’s what it is — but of course this has been a great fear for all Norwegians when they have seen what has been happening around the world.”

By any definition, this was a terrorist attack; what Mjarum means is that it is unproven whether the attack was indeed carried out by Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami. As the New York Times reports:

A terror group, Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami, or the Helpers of the Global Jihad, issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, according to Will McCants, a terrorism analyst at C.N.A., a research institute that studies terrorism. The message said the attack was a response to Norwegian forces’ presence in Afghanistan and to unspecified insults to the Prophet Muhammad. “We have warned since the Stockholm raid of more operations,” the group said, according to Mr. McCants’ translation, apparently referred to a bombing in Sweden in December 2010. “What you see is only the beginning, and there is more to come.” The claim could not be confirmed.

[John.hergy]

actually the pictures raise some more questions how does one drive a van loaded with weapons onto an island with no bridges or roads going to it? looks like only access is by boat.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2017709/Anders-Behring-Breivik-arrested-holiday-island-massacre.html

By Mail Foreign Service

24 July 2011

Pictured: The blond Norwegian, 32, arrested over 'holiday island massacre' and linked to Oslo car bomb blasts

Norwegian media name arrested man as Anders Behring Breivik
Police say he was behind holiday island shootings and Oslo blast
Right-wing extremist committed 'act of a madman'
Reports he was shot and wounded before arrest
1.30pm: Massive car bomb explosion kills at least seven in Oslo
3.30pm: As many as 84 feared dead as man disguised as police officer opens fire on island
Eyewitnesses say bodies floating in the sea around the island
Undetonated explosives found on Utoya island


The 32-year-old Norwegian man arrested for gunning down children on a holiday island and detonating a car bomb in Oslo has been named locally as Anders Behring Breivik.

Described as 6ft tall and blond, he is reported to have arrived on the island of Utoyadressed as a policeman and opened fire after beckoning several young people over in his native Norwegian tongue.

Reports suggest he was also seen loitering around the site of the bomb blast in Oslo two hours before the island incident.

Authorities now claim 91 people were killed - in Oslo and on Utoya Island, 50 miles north of the capital, it was claimed.

Norwegian police said at least 84 were killed at Utoya alone and described the killings as of 'catastrophic dimensions' and 'the work of a madman'.

It took investigators several hours to begin to realise the full scope of Friday's massacre, which followed an explosion in nearby Oslo that killed seven and that police say was set off by the same suspect.

The mass shootings are among the worst in history. With the blast outside the prime minister's office, they formed the deadliest day of terror in Western Europe since the 2004 Madrid train bombings killed 191.

A police official said the suspect appears to have acted alone in both attacks, and that 'it seems like that this is not linked to any international terrorist organizations at all.

'This seems like a madman's work.'

The Oslo bomb blast was outside a government office, while the island of Utoya is reportedly owned by the Norwegian Labour Party.

Teenagers on the Norwegian holiday island of Utoya had to 'swim for their lives' and hide in trees when the gunman fired indiscriminately at them.

Around 700 had gathered on the island for a meeting of the youth wing of the ruling Labour party.

Witnesses said the man in police uniform who opened fire beckoned several young people over before shooting at them. He told them to 'come here'.

Other witnesses said they heard him saying: 'This is just the beginning.'

Police landed on the island by helicopter as the shooting continued and sealed off the area but ambulances were unable to reach the scene immediately.

Fredrik Walløe, a London-based Norwegian journalist, tweeted: 'A Sea King helicopter carrying medics has reached the island, but can't land because of continued gunfire.'

Locals were urged to help those fleeing the island.
Victim: Woman covered in blood is led away from the scene following the explosion this afternoon

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who had been due to visit the island, told a Norwegian TV channel that the situation was critical.

He said: 'We now have reports of a serious situation there - a critical situation on Utoya.'

Emilie Bersaas, 19, spoke from Utoya last night, from where she could still hear police and helicopters overheard.

She said: 'I'm at a building with the army. I ran here when I heard the shooting. I heard a lot of people running and screaming. I ran to the nearest building and hid under the desk.'

She said there was 'a lot of shooting' and she heard 'screaming from the next room'.

'The shooting came from all different directions,' she added. 'Somebody told me to go under the desk. And put mattresses and pillows on top so I felt kind of safe. It was terrifying.'

She said the shooting was very close to the building and hit it at one point.

'I stayed under the bed for two hours. Then the police smashed the window and came in.'

'It seems so unreal, in Norway this doesn't happen here. It's something that we hear about happening in the U.S.

'It's weird and it's tough and it reminds us of problems that we should have taken more seriously than we have.'

She added: 'I'm worried about my friends on the island. I've talked to some of them. Some of them are hiding in the same building as me but some of them I don’t know where they are.'

The island attack came soon after a massive car blast at a government office block in the capital Oslo, where reports say a man also dressed in police uniform, which could have been the same person, was seen loitering beforehand.

It has not been confirmed if the two incidents were coordinated or the island gunman was acting alone - but Oslo police believe the two incidents may indeed be linked.

Simen Braende Mortensen, a guard on the boat to Utoya Island, told VG newspaper he saw a man, aged between 30 to 40-years-old, in a police uniform and bulletproof vest drive on to the Labour Party-owned boat in a silver van.

He apparently had a pistol and a rifle with telescopic sight, had a Norwegian look and spoke in a common eastern dialect.

It is reported he said he had been sent to beef up security following the Oslo bombing, and was shot and wounded before being arrested. There are reports that he also tried to kill himself, but these have not been confirmed.

Some people fled the attack by swimming away from the island, while others locked themselves in buildings.

They were warned not to reveal their location on social media networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, for fear they could be the victims of future attempts.

Victims of the first blast in Oslo were still being treated as news of the second incident filtered through.

Mr Stoltenberg, who was advised by security officials not to reveal his location, told journalists: 'There is a critical situation at Utoya and several ongoing ops as we speak.

'Co-workers have lost their lives today... it's frightening. That's not how we want things in our country.

'But it's important that we don't let ourselves be scared. Because the purpose of that kind of violence is to create fear.'

Also police were this afternoon were investigating reports of a suspicious package at broadcaster TV2 in the capital.

At least 15 people were injured in the initial attack in Oslo. It is known that seven were being treated at Oslo University Hospital.

The tangled wreckage of a car was seen outside one Government building with officers investigating whether it was responsible for the blast and carrying a fertiliser nitrate device.

Fortunately, it was a public holiday and the offices were less busy than during a normal weekday.

Ulrik Fredrik Thyve was finishing work when he heard the bang.

He said: 'The explosion was immense; my office felt like it contracted, expanded, and windows were blown all over the building.

'Dust, smoke, people bleeding everywhere. I walked out and towards ground zero to see if there was anything to do.'

Nick Soubiea, an American-Swedish tourist in Oslo, was less than 100 yards from the explosion and said: 'It was almost in slow motion, like a big wave that almost knocked us off our chairs. It was extremely frightening.

'There were people running down the streets, people crying, everyone on their cell phones calling home.'

'I see that some windows of the VG building and the government headquarters have been broken. Some people covered with blood are lying in the street,' she said.

'It's complete chaos here. The windows are blown out in all the buildings close by.'

Eyewitness Craig Barnes was behind the Government building that was struck.

He told Sky News: 'I'm still shocked, I can't believe it. I've got no words, I'm shaken up. Quite a few people are injured. It has shocked everyone and its a major holiday here. Everyone leaves here for two weeks from today.'

The Mayor of Oslo, Fabian Stang, said he did not believe Norway could have been attacked and initially hoped the explosion in the city had been caused by an accident.

He told Sky News he 'wished he could have been there' so that he could have stood 'in front of the young people and ask the gunman to shoot me instead.'

Foreign Secretary William Hague said the UK stood 'shoulder to shoulder' with Norway.

The statement of support came as diplomats sought to check whether any British nationals were caught up in the carnage.

Mr Hague said: 'I send my deepest condolences to all those who have lost relatives or been injured in today's horrific bomb blast in Oslo.

'Our Embassy stands ready to provide assistance to any British nationals who may have been caught up in the attack.

'We condemn all acts of terrorism. The UK stands shoulder to shoulder with Norway and all our international allies in the face of such atrocities.

'We are committed to work tirelessly with them to combat the threat from terrorism in all its forms.'

U.S. President Barack Obama said the incidents were 'a reminder that the entire international community has a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring.'

Heide Bronke, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman, said Washington was monitoring the situation but did not have any word of U.S. casualties.

The attack came just over a year after three men were arrested on suspicion of having links to Al Qaeda and planning to attack targets in Norway.

Violence or the threat of it has already come to the other Nordic states: a botched bomb attack took place in the Swedish capital Stockholm last December and the bomber was killed.

Denmark has received repeated threats after a newspaper published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in late 2005, angering Muslims worldwide.

The failed December attack in Stockholm was by a Muslim man who grew up in Sweden but said he had been angered by Sweden's involvement in the NATO-led force in Afghanistan and the Prophet Mohammad cartoons.

That attack was followed weeks later by the arrest in Denmark of five men for allegedly planning to attack the newspaper which first ran the Mohammad cartoons.

In July 2010, Norwegian police arrested three men for an alleged plot to organise at least one attack on Norwegian targets and said they were linked to individuals investigated in the United States and Britain.

John Drake, senior risk consultant at London-based consultancy AKE, said: 'It may not be too dissimilar to the terrorist attack in Stockholm in December which saw a car bomb and secondary explosion shortly after in the downtown area.

'That attack was later claimed as a reprisal for Sweden's contribution to the efforts in Afghanistan.'

NATO member Norway has sometimes in the past been threatened by leaders of al Qaeda for its involvement in Afghanistan.

It has also taken part in the NATO bombing of Libya, whose leader Muammar Gaddafi has threatened to strike back in Europe.

Political violence is virtually unknown in a country known for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize and mediating in conflicts, including in the Middle East and Sri Lanka.

David Lea, Western Europe analyst at Control Risks, said: 'There certainly aren't any domestic Norwegian terrorist groups although there have been some Al Qaeda-linked arrests from time to time. They are in Afghanistan and were involved in Libya, but it's far too soon to draw any conclusions.'

[John.hergy]

http://spectator.org/blog/2011/07/22/why-it-wasnt-unreasonable-to-s#

Why It Wasn't Unreasonable to Suspect Muslim Terrorism in Norway

By Aaron Goldstein on 7.22.11 @ 11:55PM

In light of the fact that the man responsible for two heinous acts of terrorism which have thus far resulted in the deaths of 87 people is a native born, non-Muslim Norwegian, John Tabin asks if large segments of the media (including bloggers like him and me) were wrong to speculate that this was an act of Islamic radicals.

For his part, Tabin plans to answer that question in depth at a later date. So allow me to give my thoughts. I would like to make the case that it was not at all unreasonable to speculate that Muslims were involved in this attack.

First, it was only a year ago that Norwegian authorities thwarted an al Qaeda plot to attack Norway.

Second, today's attacks were nearly simultaneous. An al Qaeda calling card.

Third, it was only last week that that Norwegian authorities indicted Mullah Krekar, founder of the Ansar al-Islam, for threats against Norwegian politicians.

Fourth, a Muslim organization called Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami claimed responsibility for the attack. This is the most notable point of all. I mean what kind of people brag about murdering innocent civilians they did not kill?

Finally, consider all the acts of terrorism which have occurred since September 11, 2001 - Bali, Madrid, London, Mumbai, Fort Hood not to mention all those suicide bombings in Israel. All of those attacks were carried out by Muslim entities. Frankly, it would have been irresponsible to discount the possibility of yet another Muslim terrorist attack.

So is Anders Behring Breivik a diabolically clever lone wolf or did he have help from others? While those questions must be answered, like Timothy McVeigh, Breivik is the exception that proves the rule. But unlike McVeigh, Breivik will not be executed for deliberate and wanton mass murder.

The long and short of it is that when the next terrorist attack is carried out whether it be next week, next month or next year, the people and the organizations at the top of my suspect list will be Muslim.

As the adage goes, "Not all Muslims are terrorists but nearly all terrorists are Muslim."

[John.hergy]

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/07/26/in-defense-of-robert-spencer/


In Defense of Robert Spencer

Posted by Daniel Greenfield Bio ↓ on Jul 26th, 2011

No tragedy goes long without exploitation, and the atrocities in Norway are no exception to that rule. The media is hard at work accusing researchers who monitor and warn about Islamic radicalism and terrorism of being responsible for the actions of an extremist and a terrorist.

Is silencing researchers who have put years of effort into exposing networks of radicals the right response to a terrorist attack? No reasonable person would think so. But that is exactly what media outlets like the New York Times and the Atlantic are trying to do.

Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic goes so far as to call a prominent researcher into Islamic terrorism, Robert Spencer, a jihadist. The Washington Post admits that Spencer and other researchers are not responsible for the shootings, but sneers nonetheless. And the New York Times and a number of other outlets have picked and touted the “64 times” that Spencer was quoted in the shooter’s manifesto.

Breivik’s manifesto of over 1,500 pages pasted in countless articles, essays and documents. It takes in everything from historical overviews to his gaming habits — particularly one game, Dragon Age, which features a Knights Templar character — a role that Breivik tried to take on. No one is suggesting that the game’s publishers should be held accountable for Breivik’s decision to impersonate a modern-day Templar Knight, and neither should any of the researchers he quoted while studying up on that role.

The “64 times” cited by the Times and its imitators reflects lazy research since the majority of those quotes actually come from a single document, where Spencer is quoted side by side with Tony Blair and Condoleezza Rice.

Many of the other Spencer quotes are actually secondhand from essays written by Fjordman that also incorporate selections of quotes on Islam and its historical background. Rather than Breivik quoting Spencer, he is actually quoting Fjordman who is quoting Spencer.

Quite often, Robert Spencer is quoted providing historical background on Islam and quotes from the Koran and the Hadith. So, it’s actually Fjordman quoting Spencer quoting the Koran. If the media insists that Fjordman is an extremist and Spencer is an extremist — then isn’t the Koran also extremist?

And if the Koran isn’t extremist, then how could quoting it be extremist?

The New York Times would have you believe that secondhand quotes like these from Spencer turned Breivik into a raging madman.

It’s very important to understand that the Koran is not arranged chronologically; it’s arranged on the basis of the longest chapter to the shortest.

Breivik was using sources to build a picture of Islam. And it’s unsurprising that he would have cited one of the most prominent authorities on the topic. But it is often clear that he did not understand what he was citing.

For example, Breivik incorporated some of Spencer’s attempts to demystify the history of the Crusades, without understanding Spencer’s initial warning about the danger of false ideas about the Crusades being used to spread violence today.

As Robert Spencer commented, “What exactly is ‘hate speech’ about quoting Qur’an verses and then showing Muslim preachers using those verses to exhort people to commit acts of violence, as well as violent acts committed by Muslims inspired by those verses and others?”

Tellingly, this citation is absent from the New York Times piece and other articles. While Spencer and other researchers have painstakingly shown the connection between incitement to violence and violence — no similar effort has been made by those attacking him.


http://frontpagemag.com/2011/07/26/in-defense-of-robert-spencer/2/

The complete absence of quotes in which Robert Spencer calls for anyone to commit acts of terrorism reveals just how empty the media’s case against him is. Instead, the New York Times props up its argument by citing the infamous “64 quotes,” many of them from the same document, others quoted secondhand and none of them calling for violence against Muslims.

And even this is irrelevant because Breivik did not carry out violence against Muslims. Instead, like the Columbine shooters, his main target was a facility with children.

If Breivik was motivated by Islamophobia, then why did he not attempt to kill Muslims? Why did he not open fire inside a mosque?

Breivik was driven by fantasies of seizing power, combined with steroid abuse and escapism. He used quotes from researchers into terrorism to pad out his schizophrenic worldview, combined with fantasies of multiple terrorist cells and an eventual rise to power.

This is not so different from lunatics who picked up a copy of “Catcher in the Rye” and then set off to kill a celebrity. A not uncommon event, for which J.D. Salinger bears no responsibility whatsoever.

Not only did Breivik not target Muslims, but he considered collaborating with Muslim terrorists.

“An alliance with the Jihadists might prove beneficial to both parties,” Breivik wrote. “We both share one common goal.”

Breivik dreamed of obtaining WMDs from jihadi terrorist groups for use against European targets. And emphasized that, “Knights Templar do not intend to persecute devout Muslims or enslave them under puppet leaders in their own Islamic countries like today’s EU/US leaders are doing.”

Rather than being driven by Islamophobia, Breivik was fantasizing about collaborating in mass murder with the same Salafi terrorist groups that researchers like Robert Spencer have worked so hard to expose.

Had Breivik succeeded in contacting jihadist groups and arranging for a transfer of WMDs, then the very people that the media is now damning might have proved vital in exposing the threat.

This is why the attacks on Spencer and other jihad researchers are so shortsighted and dangerously counterproductive. As Breivik understood, terrorists have more in common with each other than with those who seek to stop them. And silencing researchers of terrorism is a victory for terrorists.

[John.hergy]

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=45103


Accept Jihad, Or Children Will Die
by Robert Spencer
07/26/2011


Don’t resist jihad terror and Islamic supremacism—just surrender, for the sake of the children.

That is the message from the Left and its Islamic supremacist allies this week, in the wake of the horrific murders of more than 70 people at a Norwegian youth camp. Just as Leftists for years have positioned every statist and socialist measure they’ve come up with as “for the children,” now they’re using a massacre of youths in Norway to try to end all resistance to the global jihad. Their pawn in this case is the mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik who went on a spree of carnage at a Norwegian youth camp Friday, and couldn’t be better positioned to advance the Leftist agenda if he had come from central casting.

Sixteen years (and thousands of Islamic jihad terror attacks) after Tim McVeigh detonated a truck bomb in front of a government building in Oklahoma City, the Left and the mainstream media finally have another white, non-Muslim terrorist upon whom they can hang their moral equivalency arguments that, as Rosie O’Donnell put it a few years back, “Radical Christianity is just as dangerous as radical Islam.” Breivik is blonde, Nordic, and widely reported to be a “Christian fundamentalist,” although he himself stated in a lengthy manifesto, “I’m not going to pretend I’m a very religious person as that would be a lie.”

In that manifesto he inveighs at length against Marxism, multiculturalism, the statist policies of the European Union, and Europe’s supine response to Islamization. He cites many of the leading figures of the resistance to the spread of Sharia and Islamic supremacism in Europe and America—including me. His arguments for the defense of Western nations and the preservation of Western values and civilization echo many of those that leading anti-jihadists have made.

And yet he is a mass murderer. Accordingly, the blame game has begun in earnest. The New York Times warned that “opposition to Muslim immigrants, globalization, the power of the European Union and the drive toward multiculturalism has proven a potent political force and, in a few cases, a spur to violence.” The leftist English blog Harry’s Place expressed the general line of the mainstream media when it intoned: “The more this paranoid ideology grows, the more the danger increases that there will be other Breiviks. It is time the people who have relentlessly promoted notions of ‘Islamisation’ and impending cultural doom take a long hard look at exactly what they are doing, and exactly where this is likely to go.” The implication is clear: If you resist the increasingly aggressive expansion of Islam in Europe, more children will be murdered.

The logic here is absurd, albeit oft-used on the Left. Just as the deranged Jared Loughner’s shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was initially blamed on Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin, so now the Left is using Breivik to try to discredit and silence the entire anti-jihad movement, as if this psychopath’s murders prove that his political proclivities are lethal in themselves. This would be like saying that no one can question Western policies vis-à-vis the Islamic world, for to do so would make one responsible for the 17,000 deadly jihad attacks that Muslims have committed worldwide since 9/11. It would be like saying that the Beatles were responsible for the Charles Manson murders because he thought he heard exhortations to kill in their songs, or that Jodie Foster was responsible for the shooting of Ronald Reagan because in John Hinckley’s befogged mind he thought it would impress her.

The intent of this campaign is clear. The scholars, politicians and activists who have spoken out about the threat to human rights and constitutional principles that jihad and Islamization pose have never advocated any kind of violence or illegal activity. By tarring them with the murders of Anders Breivik, the enemies of freedom hope to quash all resistance to the advance of Islamic supremacism in the West. It is ironic that the Left is so energetically pursuing this campaign, given that as soon as they get the chance, the Islamic supremacists for whom Leftists are carrying water will extinguish the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, equality of rights for women, and numerous other rights and freedoms that enlightened multiculturalists take for granted now. But by then it will be too late, as they will have silenced the only people who were sounding a warning.

[John.hergy]

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/07/25/oslo-and-the-dangers-of-moral-equivalence-2/


Oslo and the Dangers of Moral Equivalence

Posted by Bruce Thornton
Jul 25th, 2011

The revelation that the perpetrator of the terrorist attacks in Oslo, Anders Behring Breivik, is a self-described Christian and conservative is sure to provoke an outburst of the moral equivalence favored by apologists for jihadism. Ever since 9/11, those unwilling to confront the theology of violence in Islam have relied on the tu quoque fallacy––“you do it too”––to dismiss the role of Islamic doctrine in Muslim terrorism. In this argument, all religions have violent extremists, and so it is irrational bigotry to suggest that there’s something in Islam that makes such violence more acceptable and legitimate.

After 9/11, for example, the fact that the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was a nominal Methodist was presented as evidence for Christian terrorism––even though he died a self-professed unrepentant agnostic––or used as an example of how religious affiliation had nothing to do with Muslim violence, as Greg Easterbrook did in his book The Progress Paradox . The tendentious depiction of the Crusades in popular culture, as in Ridley Scott ’s historically ignorant Kingdom of Heaven, went even further, suggesting that Christianity’s record of religiously inspired violence was worse than Islam’s. More recently, during Representative Pete King’s hearings into Muslim extremism in America, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee scolded King for ignoring “Christian militants.”

Or consider the six-hour CNN documentary, God’s Warriors, which appeared in 2007. Its host Christine Amanpour not only equated the tiny number of Christian and Jewish terrorists with the vastly greater number of jihadists, but also implied that Jewish militants were the cause of Muslim violence: “The impact of God’s Jewish warriors goes far beyond these rocky hills [i.e. Jewish West Bank settlements]. The Jewish settlements have inflamed much of the Muslim world.” So, too, historian of religion Philip Jenkins, who told NPR that “the Islamic scriptures in the Quran [concerning war] were actually far less bloody and less violent than those in the Bible.” The serial apologist for jihad John Esposito wrote in his book Unholy War, “Terrorists can attempt to hijack Islam and the doctrine of jihad, but that is no more legitimate than Christian and Jewish extremists committing their acts of terrorism in their own unholy wars in the name of Christianity and Judaism.” An atheist Richard Dawkins makes the same argument, alleging that Christian fundamentalists “fuel their tanks at the same holy gas station” as Muslim terrorists.

The absurdity of these arguments is patent. First, the number of attacks attributable to self-professed Christian terrorists is miniscule compared to the toll of Islamic jihadists––17,489 since 9/11, as counted and documented by Religion of Peace. More important, though the former terrorists may call themselves Christian, only a tiny handful of Christians would accept that label, contrary to the wide acceptance and approval of jihadist terrorism that can be found throughout the Muslim world. For example, a recent Pew survey found that one in five people in Egypt view al Qaeda favorably, the same percentage in supposedly moderate Indonesia, figures representing over 60 million people. It is unimaginable that a similar survey about Breivik would generate anything more than a rounding-error’s worth of Christians supporting him.

This fact reflects the most obvious fallacy behind the moral equivalence argument: the complete lack of anything remotely resembling a theology of violence in the Bible. Yes, there is plenty of blood and guts in the Old Testament, but as Raymond Ibrahim points out, the references to those battles are “descriptive, not prescriptive,” and reflect history rather than theology. There is nothing in the Bible remotely similar to the numerous commands to wage war against the infidel that can be found in the Koran, the hadiths, the biographies of Mohammed, and 14 centuries of Islamic jurisprudence, commentary, history, and theology.



http://frontpagemag.com/2011/07/25/oslo-and-the-dangers-of-moral-equivalence-2/2/


Nor can one find Christian clerics or scholars praising and justifying religious violence, whereas numerous respected Muslim religious leaders do so on a regular basis, for the obvious reason that it is doctrinally legitimate and traditional. The continuity of this 14-century-long tradition can be traced starting with Mohammed’s farewell address in 642, when he said, “I was ordered to fight all men until they say, ‘There is no god but Allah.’” This incitement to religious violence was repeated by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979: “Until the cry ‘There is no God but God’ resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.” It was repeated by bin Laden in 2001: “I was ordered to fight the people until they say there is no god but Allah, and his prophet Muhammed.” And it was quoted by the Fort Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hassan, in a power-point presentation at Walter Reed Hospital. No such tradition exists in Christianity or Judaism, because theological violence is not part of those faiths.

This reliance on moral equivalence not only obscures the causes of Muslim violence. It also leads to misunderstanding the true significance of European extremism. Rather than the expression of Christian or conservative pathology, acts like the Oslo bombing expose the bankruptcy of the EU utopian dream and its notion that nationalist loyalty and Christian identity are at best passé, at worst an expression of xenophobia or racism. EUtopia has marginalized legitimate nationalist and religious identity and exalted in its place some mythic transnational cosmopolitanism and sentimentalized multiculturalism alien to the lives of most ordinary Europeans. As such it creates the conditions in which extremist, if not neo-fascist varieties of nationalism, can flourish, particularly given the growing problems of marginalized and unassimilated Muslim immigrants.

This is not to suggest that anything is responsible for the Oslo bombing other than the actions of the bomber. But it is important to understand the correct context of those actions. As EUtopia continues to unravel, both economically and as a politico-social ideal, we can expect to see extremist parties in Europe grow larger, and violence be increasingly regarded as a legitimate response to the EUtopian assaults against national identity and cultural traditions.

[John.hergy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/us/25debate.html?_r=2&hp


By SCOTT SHANE
Published: July 24, 2011


The man accused of the killing spree in Norway was deeply influenced by a small group of American bloggers and writers who have warned for years about the threat from Islam, lacing his 1,500-page manifesto with quotations from them, as well as copying multiple passages from the tract of the Unabomber.

In the document he posted online, Anders Behring Breivik, who is accused of bombing government buildings and killing scores of young people at a Labor Party camp, showed that he had closely followed the acrimonious American debate over Islam.

His manifesto, which denounced Norwegian politicians as failing to defend the country from Islamic influence, quoted Robert Spencer, who operates the Jihad Watch Web site, 64 times, and cited other Western writers who shared his view that Muslim immigrants pose a grave danger to Western culture.

More broadly, the mass killings in Norway, with their echo of the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City by an antigovernment militant, have focused new attention around the world on the subculture of anti-Muslim bloggers and right-wing activists and renewed a debate over the focus of counterterrorism efforts.

In the United States, critics have asserted that the intense spotlight on the threat from Islamic militants has unfairly vilified Muslim Americans while dangerously playing down the threat of attacks from other domestic radicals. The author of a 2009 Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism withdrawn by the department after criticism from conservatives repeated on Sunday his claim that the department had tilted too heavily toward the threat from Islamic militants.

The revelations about Mr. Breivik’s American influences exploded on the blogs over the weekend, putting Mr. Spencer and other self-described “counterjihad” activists on the defensive, as their critics suggested that their portrayal of Islam as a threat to the West indirectly fostered the crimes in Norway.

Mr. Spencer wrote on his Web site, jihadwatch.org, that “the blame game” had begun, “as if killing a lot of children aids the defense against the global jihad and Islamic supremacism, or has anything remotely to do with anything we have ever advocated.” He did not mention Mr. Breivik’s voluminous quotations from his writings.

The Gates of Vienna, a blog that ordinarily keeps up a drumbeat of anti-Islamist news and commentary, closed its pages to comments Sunday “due to the unusual situation in which it has recently found itself.”

Its operator, who describes himself as a Virginia consultant and uses the pseudonym “Baron Bodissey,” wrote on the site Sunday that “at no time has any part of the Counterjihad advocated violence.”

The name of that Web site — a reference to the siege of Vienna in 1683 by Muslim fighters who, the blog says in its headnote, “seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe” — was echoed in the title Mr. Breivik chose for his manifesto: “2083: A European Declaration of Independence.” He chose that year, the 400th anniversary of the siege, as the target for the triumph of Christian forces in the European civil war he called for to drive out Islamic influence.

Marc Sageman, a former C.I.A. officer and a consultant on terrorism, said it would be unfair to attribute Mr. Breivik’s violence to the writers who helped shape his world view. But at the same time, he said the counterjihad writers do argue that the fundamentalist Salafi branch of Islam “is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged. Well, they and their writings are the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.”

“This rhetoric,” he added, “is not cost-free.”

Dr. Sageman, who is also a forensic psychiatrist, said he saw no overt signs of mental illness in Mr. Breivik’s writings. He said Mr. Breivik bears some resemblance to Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who also spent years on a manifesto and carried out his mail bombings in part to gain attention for his theories. One obvious difference, Dr. Sageman said, is that Mr. Kaczynski was a loner who spent years in a rustic Montana cabin, while Mr. Breivik appears to have been quite social.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/us/25debate.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&hp


(Page 2 of 2)

Mr. Breivik’s declaration did not name Mr. Kaczynski or acknowledge the numerous passages copied from the Unabomber’s 1995 manifesto, in which the Norwegian substituted “multiculturalists” or “cultural Marxists” for Mr. Kaczynski’s “leftists” and made other small wording changes.

By contrast, he quoted the American and European counterjihad writers by name, notably Mr. Spencer, author of 10 books, including “Islam Unveiled” and “The Truth About Muhammad.”

Mr. Breivik frequently cited another blog, Atlas Shrugs, and recommended the Gates of Vienna among Web sites. Pamela Geller, an outspoken critic of Islam who runs Atlas Shrugs, wrote on her blog Sunday that any assertion that she or other antijihad writers bore any responsibility for Mr. Breivik’s actions was “ridiculous.”

“If anyone incited him to violence, it was Islamic supremacists,” she wrote.

Mr. Breivik also quoted European blogs and writers with similar themes, notably a Norwegian blogger who writes under the name “Fjordman.” Immigration from Muslim countries to Scandinavia and the rest of Europe has set off a deep political debate across the continent and strengthened a number of right-wing anti-immigrant parties.

In the United States, the shootings resonated with years of debate at home over the proper focus of counterterrorism.

Despite the Norway killings, Representative Peter T. King, the New York Republican who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he had no plans to broaden contentious hearings about the radicalization of Muslim Americans and would hold the third one as planned on Wednesday. He said his committee focused on terrorist threats with foreign ties and suggested that the Judiciary Committee might be more appropriate for looking at non-Muslim threats.

In 2009, when the Department of Homeland Security produced a report, “Rightwing Extremism,” suggesting that the recession and the election of an African-American president might increase the threat from white supremacists, conservatives in Congress strongly objected. Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, quickly withdrew the report and apologized for what she said were its flaws.

Daryl Johnson, the Department of Homeland Security analyst who was the primary author of the report, said in an interview that after he left the department in 2010, the number of analysts assigned to non-Islamic militancy of all kinds was reduced to two from six. Mr. Johnson, who now runs a private research firm on the domestic terrorist threat, DTAnalytics, said about 30 analysts worked on Islamic radicalism when he was there.

The killings in Norway “could easily happen here,” he said. The Hutaree, an extremist Christian militia in Michigan accused last year of plotting to kill police officers and planting bombs at their funerals, had an arsenal of weapons larger than all the Muslim plotters charged in the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks combined, he said.

Homeland Security officials disputed Mr. Johnson’s claim about staffing, saying they pay close attention to all threats, regardless of ideology. And the F.B.I. infiltrated the Hutaree, making arrests before any attack could take place.

John D. Cohen, principal deputy counterterrorism coordinator at the Department of Homeland Security, said Ms. Napolitano, who visited Oklahoma City last year for the 15th anniversary of the bombing there, had often spoken of the need to assess the risk of violence without regard to politics or religion.

“What happened in Norway,” Mr. Cohen said, “is a dramatic reminder that in trying to prevent attacks, we cannot focus on a single ideology.”

[John.hergy]

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/07/spencer-responds-to-smear-charges-found-guilty-in-nbc-news-report.html


Spencer responds to smear charges, found guilty in NBC News report

In this report I appear for about five seconds, denying responsibility for the psychopath's murders in Norway. These seconds were taken from an interview with NBC's Michael Isikoff that lasted ten or fifteen minutes. At one point Isikoff brought up the Southern Poverty Law Center, but when I began responding that the SPLC was a hard-Left propaganda outfit that defames everyone to its right, Isikoff cut me off and said he didn't want to make the segment about the SPLC. Now I know why: in the report as it aired yesterday, an SPLC shill immediately follows my appearance and does her best to frame me for the crime.

And here is more "journalism" from the Leftist tool Isikoff:

In this one, Isikoff claims that there has been a "surge" of "right wing attacks" in the last couple of years -- since Obama has been president (racism implication noted). This is sheer Leftist fantasy; meanwhile, Isikoff and NBC completely ignore the very real and readily documented surge in jihad plots in the U.S. over the last two years.


Posted by Robert on July 26, 2011 6:14 AM

[John.hergy]

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/07/islam-set-to-become-the-dominant-primer-of-future-non-muslim-extremist-violence.html



Islam Set to Become the Dominant Primer of Future Non-Muslim Extremist Violence?

Islam Set to Become the Dominant Primer of Future Non-Muslim Extremist Violence?
by M. A. Khan

In recent decades, Muslims have obviously been the overwhelmingly dominant perpetrators of religiously-motivated extremist violence, targeting non-Muslims and their allies within the Muslim community, as well as Muslim sects which they consider deviant from orthodox Islam. But over the last couple of decades, extremist violence by non-Muslims, targeting people of differing faiths, has been becoming increasingly frequent. And disturbingly, an Islamic connection is becoming a common motivator of these non-Muslim extremist violence: Non-Muslims commit those violence due to instigation by Muslims or as retaliation to preceding violence by Muslims.

In the West, the last time a non-Muslim extremist committed a major terrorist massacre was the Oklahoma City Bombing by Timothy McVeigh (professed to be an atheist of Christian heritage) on April 19, 1995 that killed 168 people and injured 450. McVeigh's motive was his anger at the Waco Siege at Texas (February 28 to April 19, 1993) by the FBI that left 76 people of the infamous David Koresh-led Davidian Sect dead.

And whenever extremist Muslim groups or individuals have committed similar terrorist atrocities in recent years, we have been reminded by Muslims and their apologists with reference to the McVeigh incident that people of all persuasions -- Islam, Christianity, Judaism, White Supremacism, Communism, and such -- can commit extremist violence. So, Islam should not associated with extremism and terrorism for the actions of its individual followers, just as violence by a Christian or Jewish extremist must not be attributed to their faiths.

Now, in the West, we have a new extremist massacre in Norway: Bombing and a horrendous shooting spree in Oslo, both apparently committed by Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian Nationalist extremist and a Christian, have left nearly 100 innocent people dead. This Oslo extremist violence incident will certainly add further fuel to the Islamic apologists' attempt to shield Islam from criticism for the atrocities radical Muslims commit in the name of their religion.

The purpose of this note is, however, to highlight how Islam is also becoming the dominant motivating or instigating factor behind the extremist violence committed by non-Muslims around the world.

The connection of Breivik's motivation to Islam is already crystal clear. His 1,500-page manifesto, entitled "2083: A European Declaration of Independence”, is all about Europe's "Islam problem" caused by unrestrained Muslim immigration and aided by the predominantly leftist political elite. About Islam's historical problems, Breivik writes (p. 39):

Since the creation of Islam in the 7th century and to up to this day, the Islamic Jihad has systematically killed more than 300 million non Muslims and tortured and enslaved more than 500 million individuals. Since 9/11 2001, more than 12 000 Jihadi terrorist attacks have occurred around the world which have led to the death of one or more non-Muslims [2] per attack. In other words; there are around 150 deadly Jihadi attacks per month around the world. This trend will continue as long as there are non-Muslim targets available and as long as Islam continues to exist.

He mentions of the Norway government's cowardly handling of the Muslim rage surrounding the publication of Prophet Muhammad's cartoons in Danish magazine (2006-2007). His major concern: Muslim immigration, actively promoted by present leftist governments, was bringing in chaos to Europe. When thousands of Muslim enclaves in Europe -- in Norway, Sweden, Britain, France, Netherlands, and other countries -- have already become "no-go zones" for the native Europeans, and more and more neighborhoods with growing Muslim populations are becoming inhospitable to the natives, who are often forced out of those areas through intimidation and even violence by Muslims, Breivik's concern is not at all groundless. And he sees solution to this Tsumani of Europe's "Islam problem" in the waging of a "Western European Resistance Movements (anti-Marxist/anti-Jihad movements)" -- a European Civil War -- by the so-called "patriotic European political activists" against Muslims and their leftist allies; and he predicts it will eventually be won by the Resistance Movement in 2083 with the annihilation of the Leftists/Marxists and deportation of Muslims. His terrorist actions on July 23, 2011, are declaration of that Civil War, in which he targeted youths of Norway's Leftist ruling party.

Apart from the Norway incident, India is another hotspot where we see extremist homicidal violence committed by non-Muslim Hindus that are also connected to Islam: Hindus commit those violence either upon instigation by Muslims or in retaliation to preceding violence by them. An example is the infamous 2002 Gujarat Violence, in which Hindus attacked Muslims and Muslims counter-attacked. The violence resulted in 790 Muslim and 254 Hindu deaths. What is often omitted from discussion about Gujarat riot is that Hindus committed it in retaliation to an earlier Muslim atrocity, in which they set fire on a train full of Hindu devotees, mostly women and children, burning 59 Hindus to death.

Over in Africa, Christians in Nigeria (and other countries) have suffered sustained horrendous violence at the hands of increasingly radicalized Muslims in recent years. And on a few occasions, Christians have hit back in retaliation, causing large-scale homicide of Muslims.

One must consider the fact that the Chinese and Indians (Hindus) are also immigrating to Europe in large numbers, but they are no concern to Breivik; his concern is exclusively directed at the Muslim immigrants. The reason is: the non-Muslim Chinese and Indian immigrants integrate in European societies, or, at least, live peacefully with their native neighbors. But Muslims not only refuse to integrate in the host societies, but also have become a major source of social scourge and violence: all sorts of criminal activities, terrorist attacks, as well as rapes and eviction of the natives.

And source of these problems is Islam, not the individuals. Britain is facing problems with Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh and Pakistan, but not with the equally-large Hindu immigrant community from the same region. The Hindu and Muslim immigrants from the subcontinent are the same as individuals; religion is the only difference between them.

As the burgeoning and increasingly radicalized and violent Muslim populations distress non-Muslims all over the world, including in non-Muslim-majority countries, extremist violence by non-Muslims, like the acts committed by Hindus in India, Christians in Nigerian and the Norwegian nationalist Breivik, are set to become increasingly frequent. A full-scale Civil War in Europe, as anticipated by Breivik, cannot be ruled out. Instead, it remains a real possibility and may spread to other parts of the world.

The indiscriminate and ruthless killing of innocent young people by Breivik to draw attention to Europe's "Islam problem," as well as those committed by the Hindus in India or Christians in Nigeria, are tragic and indefensible. But as the state of affairs stands now, the occurrence of such tragic incidents with increasing frequency in future also looks to be a definite possibility. It is in the hands of governments as well as of Muslims themselves to mitigate the problem. Muslim immigrants can learn from the Hindu or Chinese immigrants in their host countries, while the governments should pay serious attention to a real problem, instead of turning a blind eye to it, which they have done for way too long.

[John.hergy]

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/07/who-benefits-whos-behind-it.html


Who Benefits? Who's Behind It?
by Roland Shirk

Is Anders Breivik what happens when social conservatives attack? Was he driven to savage violence by the threats of “cultural Marxism,” Islamic colonization, and the E.U. oligarchy? It's possible. President Garfield was shot over less. But Breivik's manifesto is very curious, both in what appears (sane, sober arguments) and what doesn't (crude racist rhetoric). It is hard to reconcile the sadistic obscenity of Breivik's actions with his measured, thoughtful tone — at least in the parts that weren't lazily cribbed from the Unabomber.

Move to the sources Breivik cites and the cognitive dissonance deafens: Stuffy Burkeans like the Intercollegiate Studies Institute; campus journalists like the Collegiate Network; measured critics of Islam like Daniel Pipes and Bat Ye'or. Indeed, the person serving as media scapegoat for Breivik's atrocities, my friend Robert Spencer of Jihadwatch, is a mild-mannered scholar who urges only peaceful, constitutional activism. He seeks not the persecution of Muslims but safety from jihadists. Much of Spencer's time each day is spent doing wearied reportage on vicious, religiously motivated attacks by Muslims on non-Muslims — much like those which Breivik carried out in Norway. Spencer's rhetoric is neither religious nor racialist; his arguments are grounded firmly in Enlightenment concepts of human rights.

Breivik's polemic against “cultural Marxism” reads more like a crib of learned historians like Paul Gottfried or John Lukacs than the fevered ravings of some Nordic neopagan killer. His critique of the European Union echoes those of tweedy, harmless British Tories.

It is hard to believe that someone as bright as Breivik appears to have been would commit such an atrocity, given the predictable result: a violent backlash against all his ideas. (If they are his.) A stupid or deranged person might not foresee such an outcome. Breivik seems to be neither.

Consider this news report from the New York Times (May 26, 2009):

BERLIN — It was called “the shot that changed the republic.”

The killing in 1967 of an unarmed demonstrator by a police officer in West Berlin set off a left-wing protest movement and put conservative West Germany on course to evolve into the progressive country it has become today.

Now a discovery in the archives of the East German secret police, known as the Stasi, has upended Germany’s perception of its postwar history. The killer, Karl-Heinz Kurras, though working for the West Berlin police, was at the time also acting as a Stasi spy for East Germany.

It is as if the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard had been committed by an undercover K.G.B. officer....

Note that Breivik's writings quote only the most sophisticated, non-violent, non-racist sources. There are plenty of neo-Nazis and racialists out there whom he could have cited, the kind of sources most mass killers find appealing. When Timothy McVeigh committed mass murder in Oklahoma City, the inspirations he cited for his hostility to the U.S. government were not works like Frederic Bastiat's The Law, but bloodthirsty racist fantasies like The Turner Diaries.

Who, on the other hand, would find it attractive to smear by association all the most cogent, respectable sources of resistance to Islamic expansion, EU integration, and Marxist theory? A highly sophisticated supporter of those three movements, or an operative working for someone else who was.

Imagine if Lee Harvey Oswald had before his shooting of John F. Kennedy published a manifesto citing as his inspiration... the leading Marxist professors at Ivy League colleges, civil rights leaders, and members of the Hollywood Ten. Astute observers might have spied there the hand of J. Edgar Hoover. And they would have been dismissed as conspiracy cranks.

I have no proof that Breivik is a secret Muslim convert, Marxist operative, or deep-cover agent of some European security service. It may be that Breivik is one of those people who can compartmentalize reality, who can read sane and prudent arguments against the radical transformation of a continent and its culture with one part of his brain, and with the other cook up a murder fantasy that will make his mark in history. Perhaps he is, like the Unabomber, a failed intellectual who is driven by resentment and vainglory to force the people of the world to read his neglected “masterpiece” by underlining his words in blood. We might not know until 30 years from now, when the Eurabian Union springs him from jail and gives him a medal.

[John.hergy]

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/07/ap-misrepresents-bat-yeor-as-regretting-her-supposed-role-in-inspiring-norway-murderer.html




AP misrepresents Bat Ye'or as "regretting" her supposed role in inspiring Norway murderer



As Pamela Geller said yesterday, "Clearly the media is no longer taking a passive role, or even objective reporting. The media has become an activist voice for supremacists and the far left."

The pioneering historian Bat Ye'or is the latest victim of this irresponsible advocacy. She was misrepresented yesterday as expressing regret for inspiring the mad murderer in Norway, as if she were accepting the media's relentless claim that she had some responsibility for his murders. In fact, that was not the case. Here is her statement:

The immediate rush of the press upon authors mentioned in the writing attributed to the criminal looks like a set up campaign to make them responsible for this crime perpetrated by a psychopath whom no one knew except the police. It is clear that it is a libelous campaign to suppress any criticism and free thinking.

This sudden smear campaign and accusations against authors who live in different countries miles away from Norway, authors that governments want to silence, is very suspicious. Now more things are known: the text of the man could be a fabrication put together at the last minute; the police knew the criminal, yet he could buy all this ammunition and do this massive massacre by himself. And now, authors, writers and politicians disliked by the Norwegian Leftist government are accused of having inspired, by their democratic criticism, this massive crime that the police should have prevented, because this is their duty to do so. Something smells in all that. Is this a new tactic to suppress free thinking and free culture? Universities? Books that displease the regime? Are we going back to dictatorial Nazi or communist regimes, burning books and fabricating proofs to label people?

I do not think that this international campaign against intellectuals will in any way benefit the Leftist Norwegian government, which itself sponsors hatred and violence against another people. It is this government that has to make some self-examination before spreading another media campaign of hate.

Bat Ye’or

This is the inaccurate report to which she is responding: "Author cited by Norway attacker expresses regret," from AP, July 25:

(AP) GENEVA — An author cited in the Norway massacre suspect's rambling, 1,500-word manifesto expressed regret Monday that her writing might have served to inspire his rampage.

Gisele Littman, who writes under the name Bat Ye'or, said that since her books are in the public domain she had no control over who quoted her.

"Of course I regret if this man took inspiration from what I wrote or from what other writers wrote," she told The Associated Press by telephone from her home in Switzerland. "As an insane person he should have been treated before, and I am greatly saddened for all the young innocents who tragically lost their lives, and for their families."...

Posted by Robert on July 26, 2011

[John.hergy]

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/07/statement-of-geert-wilders-concerning-the-massacre-in-norway.html



Statement of Geert Wilders concerning the massacre in Norway

Statement of Geert Wilders concerning the massacre in Norway

The brutal murder of dozens of innocent Norwegian civilians several days ago, has shocked the Freedom Party (Dutch PVV). We mourn and stand by the Norwegian people who suffer from a massive blow.

The manifesto of the perpetrator makes clear that this is a madman. He wants to work with Al Qaeda (which he cherishes great admiration for), crave the bombing of cities, dreams of knights themselves surgically mutilate and wants to meet his hero Karadzic.

Breivik also refers to the Netherlands. That the fight against Islam by a psychopath violently abused is disgusting and a slap in the face of the global anti-Islamic movement. It fills me with disgust that the perpetrator to the PVV and me refers in his manifesto.

PVV nor I are responsible for a lone idiot who twisted the freedom-loving anti-Islamization ideals violently abused, no matter how much some people would like that. We are democrats at heart. The Freedom Party has never, ever called for violence and will never do. We believe in the power of the ballot box and the wisdom of the voter. Not bombs and guns.

We fight for a democratic and nonviolent means against the further Islamisation of society and will continue to do so. The preservation of our freedom and security is our only goal.

Geert Wilders
Posted by Robert on July 26

[John.hergy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14287817



26 July 2011

Unanswered questions in Norway tragedy
By Jorn Madslien

BBC News


Four days after the twin terror attacks in Norway, the popular response has been restrained. It has been a display of grief rather than anger.

The lives lost sparked a massive response, with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets in the capital, Oslo, and across the country last night.

But it is only a matter of time before the people, politicians and the media start taking a more analytical look at what happened last Friday.

As part of such a process, difficult questions will be put to the security and emergency services.

In particular, the response by the police to the massacre at the Norwegian Labour youth camp on Utoeya island appears to have been slow.

On Tuesday, Justice Minister Knut Storberget praised police for "fantastic" work after the attacks that killed at least 76 people, despite the criticisms over their apparent slow response.


Norwegian Justice Minister

"It is very important that we have an open and critical approach... but there is a time for everything," he said after talks with Oslo's police chief.

Boat rescue

Media helicopters were filming the killings from the air, long before the arrival of armed anti-terrror police officers, more than an hour after the shooting started.

Courageous boat owners were rescuing young people from drowning in the lake long before any emergency services came to their assistance.

Engine failure is said to have delayed the arrival of one commando police boat by 10 minutes. Police surveillance was apparently unavailable because of holidays.

And armed response units were tied up in Oslo, where government buildings had been blown up in an unprecedented attack.

The apparently slow response to the Utoeya massacre raises questions about whether the police were prepared well enough for a dual attack.

Known suspect

Norwegian intelligence services are also expected to come under closer scrutiny following revelations that the suspected killer, Anders Behren Breivik, was known to the authorities.

Breivik was on a security service watch list after he ordered chemicals online from a Polish company in March this year.

His name was passed to the Police Security Service (PST) by Norwegian customs.

It has also emerged that Breivik had been in touch with senior members of the UK's English Defence League, and that this contact had been revealed by the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight.

As yet, no-one has openly criticised the police or any other security or emergency services for any perceived shortcomings for preventing or stopping the attacks.

But explanations will nevertheless be expected soon.