Categories: World News

Norway Mosque Shooting Being Probed As ‘Act Of Terror’ – Police

Police vehicles near the al-Noor Islamic centre mosque where a gunman, armed with multiple weapons, went on a shooting spree in the town of Baerum, an Oslo suburb on August 10, 2019. 
Terje Pedersen / NTB Scanpix / AFP

 

The shooting at a mosque near Oslo is being treated as an “attempted act of terror”, Norwegian police said on Sunday, with the suspect appearing to harbour far-right, anti-immigrant views.

“We are looking at an attempted act of terror,” acting chief of the police operation Rune Skjold told a press conference after Saturday’s incident left one man injured.

Skjold said the investigation had shown that the man appeared to hold “far-right” and “anti-immigrant” views.

The suspect, armed with multiple weapons, opened fire in the mosque in Baerum, a suburb of Oslo, on Saturday afternoon, before being overpowered by a man who suffered “minor injuries” in the process.

Norway was the scene of one of the worst-ever attacks by a right-wing extremist in July 2011, when 77 people were killed by Anders Behring Breivik.

Hours after the attack on Saturday, the body of a young woman related to the suspect was found in a home also in Baerum.

Investigators are treating her death as suspicious and have opened a murder probe.

Police said earlier on Sunday they had tried to question the suspect, described as a “young man” with a “Norwegian background” who was living in the vicinity but he did not want to “give an explanation to police”.

The man had been known to police before the incident but according to Skjold he could not be described as someone with a “criminal background”.

READ ALSO: One Hurt In Norway Mosque Shooting, Suspect Arrested

On Saturday, Norwegian media reported that the suspect was believed to have put up a post to an online forum hours before the attack where he seemingly praised the assailant in the attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in March when 51 people were killed.

The suspect in the Christchurch killings wrote a hate-filled manifesto in which he said he was influenced by far-right ideologues including Breivik.

Breivik detonated a massive bomb in Oslo that killed eight people and then opened fire on a gathering of the Labour Party’s youth wing on the island of Utoya, killing another 69 people, most of them teenagers.

Local Norwegian paper Budstikka said it had contacted the mosque in Baerum in March after the Christchurch massacre and that officials there had said security would be tightened.

AFP

Simon

Disqus Comments Loading...
Share
Published by
Simon

Recent Posts

CBN Pegs Minimum Capital Base For Banks At ₦500bn 

The apex bank said the new minimum capital base for commercial banks with national authorisation…

17 mins ago

Soldiers’ Killing Oil-Related, DSS Should Lead Probe — Urhobo Leader

The Urhobo leader called for an independent probe into the circumstances that led to the…

21 mins ago

Tyrants Won’t Become Leaders In Parliamentary Democracy — Utomi 

The thought leader noted that thriving democracies in the world practice parliamentary democracy.

1 hour ago

Tinubu Appoints Abdullahi Bello As CCB Chairman 

By the presidential pronouncement, Abdullahi Bello replaces Aliyu Kankia, who has been the acting Chairman…

2 hours ago

NAFDAC Cracks Down On Fake Bottled Water Syndicate In Rivers

The illicit scheme involved affixing pre-printed Eva labels onto the bottles and sealing them with…

4 hours ago

Military Declares Eight Wanted Over Murder Of Soldiers

The list was released hours after the slain soldiers were buried in a ceremony attended…

4 hours ago