Bombing in Oslo
Some images from the bombing in Norway today:
There also this video of the damage.
The news outlets so far are very careful not to even mention motivation. Is it too early or to suspect Islamic radicals?
Is Islam a problem in Norway?
Head of the Progress Party (Frp) Siv Jensen thinks that the fight against radical Islam is just as important as the fight against Nazism.
“Throughout history we managed to fight totalitarian ideas like Nazism and later Communism. As a liberal I will always fight against such ideas and movements. Radical Islam is a dark and scary ideology and fighting it is our era’s most important struggle.”
Obviously a right wing radical, right! Oh wait, she’s a liberal progressive. (read the post here)
Or how about this article about the rising tide of Muslim rape crimes in Norway:
According to Swedish Radio on Tuesday, statistics from Sweden’s National Council for Crime Prevention show that the number of reported rapes against children is on the rise. The figures have nearly doubled in the last ten years: 467 rapes against children under the age of 15 were reported in 2004 compared with 258 in 1995. Legal proceedings continue this week in a case involving a 13 year old girl from Motala who was said to have been subjected to a group rape by four men. (Note: These four men were Kurdish Muslims, who raped the girl for hours and even took photos of doing so)
According to some estimates, it will be a Muslim majority city in no more than 10 years.
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From the Guardian:
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor at the Observer, says a jihadist group is most likely to be behind the blast:
It has been known for some time that al-Qaida core and other related “franchises” – including in the most active in Yemen – have been attempting to develop operations. Which leads to a second question: why Norway?…
The answer to that is three fold. In then first instance, with the increased levels of security and surveillance in the UK and the US as well as other European capitals, Norway might have been seen as a softer target despite the recent breaking up of an al-Qaida cell in Norway.
A more detailed explanation of the problems that Norway has had with Al Qaeda were supplied a year ago by the Atlantic magazine in an article by Thomas Hegghammer, a senior fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment in Oslo, and Dominic Tierney.
That piece followed the arrest of three men in Norway and Germany for allegedly plotting a terrorist attack involving peroxide explosives. All of those arrested were were Muslim immigrants to Norway.
The first explanation,” wrote Hegghammer and Tierney, “is Afghanistan. Norway has been part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan from its foundation in late 2001…. In late 2007, for example, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida’s
second-in-command, said that the group had previously threatened Norway because it “participated in the war against the Muslims…
A second contributory factor for why Norway may have been eyed in the past for potential jihadi terrorist attack is the fact that in 2006, a Norwegian newspaper reprinted a series of Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad which prompted threats against the country. A third potential explanation is the recent decision last week by a Norwegian prosecutor filed terror charges against an Iraqi-born cleric for threatening Norwegian politicians with death if he’s deported from the Nordic country. The indictment centered on statements that Mullah Krekar – the founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam – made to various media, including American network NBC.
A third potential explanation is the decision last week by a Norwegian prosecutor to file terror charges against an Iraqi-born cleric for threatening to kill Norwegian politicians if he is deported.
The indictment centered on statements that Mullah Krekar, the founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam, made to various media, including the American network NBC.
A report earlier this year by the Norwegian intelligence noted the increasing risk of a jihadi terrorist attack, with Norwegian citizens reportedly trained in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan.
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The bomber/shooter of this atrocity has been identified. He is not a Muslim, and looks to be a right-wing extremist. Although there was no Islamist link, the Islamic threat to Europe continues, and I have no doubt that we’ll see greater strife as Europe continues to implode.
