Terrorist Attack in Norway, But Don't Jump To Conclusions...

"My youngest daughter was a couple of meters in front of me when she suddenly stopped as there were lots of blue lights."

"We saw a police car with sirens on come, and it stopped at the top of the street. Two policemen jumped out of the car with weapons and ran into the shop here, and they were shouting, 'armed police, put down the weapon.'"

"Then we were told to move away, that we had to get to safety. So we ran to the corner there, and stood there on the corner. There, we met another man who said that it was he who had called the police, and that the perpetrator had shot after him, down here, and then we saw that there was an arrow down there in the road. There was no crossbow only a long arrow lying there."

Linda Ostergaard, attack witness, Kongsberg, Norway

 

"The man has been apprehended ... from the information we now have, this person carried out these actions alone."

"Several people have been injured and several are dead." 

Oeyvind Aas, police chief, Kongsberg

 

"This is a gruesome incident, there is nothing else to say."

"Now we must try to take care of the inhabitants as best we can."

"[This town is] a completely ordinary community with completely ordinary people. [Everyone has been deeply shaken by] this very tragic situation."

Kari Anne Sand, mayor, Kongsberg

Police officers cordon off the scene in Kongsberg on October 13.

"We have during last night, this morning and this afternoon learned more about what atrocities have taken place, what cruel acts innocent people were exposed to, what unrest and fear hit the community in Kongsberg, and spread to the whole country."

"This shows that our society is vulnerable. It is not good for us to conclude what is the motive, what is behind this action. The police must be allowed to finish their work and clarify, but it emphasizes again that preparedness is a complex task for a society."

Labour leader, Norway Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store

Despite having said which, police readily and early declared the longbow attack that killed four women and a man, injuring several others, was a terrorist attack. Committed, as it happens, by someone whom the police had previously interacted with, a Dane living in Norway who had converted to Islam and who was known to have been radicalized. Espen Andersen Bråthen, 37, is slated to appear in court Friday, charges levelled against him not yet revealed.

Obviously, no one is leaping to conclusions; the evidence seems fairly straightforward, yet the government itself walks on tippy-toes over declaring the obvious, not wanting its citizenry to draw from the shocking news any hint of caution required against the country's immigrant Muslim population. A situation which could easily get out of hand, after all, leading to suspicion from indigenous Norwegians about how trustworthy their relatively new demographic of immigrant Muslims can be in their loyalty to their welcoming country.

How many 'radicalized' Muslims could there be? How much of a threat do they pose to the general population? Norway has already dealt with a much more shocking terrorist event when one of its own conceived and acted on a plan to illustrate just how dangerous hatred of the other can be, when he murdered 8 innocent people in Oslo detonating a bomb, then stormed an island to slaughter 69 more in a gun rampage. All together Anders Behring Brevik, a right-wing idealogue, angry over immigration killed 77 people.

 

A bow and arrow cannot claim as many lives as a bomb and guns, but the damage to society through the 'gruesomeness' of the event is monumental. Although police consider the deadly attack to be an instance of terrorism, they are as yet without an explanation as to what motivated the convert to Islam, although commitment to jihad seems a reasonable enough conclusion; it is what 'radicalization' results in, responding to the call to jihad.

The first call to police by bystanders reporting a man with a bow and arrow came in at 6:15 pm, the rampage was over, the man arrested 35 minutes later. The municipality of Kongsberg, 68 km from Oslo, has a population of some 28,000 people. There were, said police,  "several crime scenes" that took place over "a large area" of the town. Resulting in large areas of the west side of the town cordoned off. 

 

The attacker first opened fire in a supermarket. At the supermarket an off-duty police officer was shot and wounded. With one of the lowest crime rates in the world, unarmed Norwegian police respond to few crimes. Last year there were only 28 occasions when police used or threatened to use firearms to apprehend a criminal situation. Not that there aren't occasions of violence erupting. When restaurants, bars and nightclubs were reopened following the loosening of pandemic restrictions dozens of mass brawls broke out.

Celebratory occasions marking the end of pandemic lockdowns in cities across Norway. Certainly not comparable to the sinister threat of stalking killers setting out on a mission of lethal violence in a country known for its tolerance and calm reaction to adverse events. A country notorious for criticism of Israel, a country which is constantly on guard for just such attacks. Norway practices a facade of public and social mores invested in quiet everyday civil diplomacy among people. Not much different than Israel but without the constant threats.

Residents have placed tributes for those killed in Kongsberg town centre   EPA