Terror Attack On Norwegian Government 401
techtech sends this quote from the BBC:
"A large bomb blast has hit near government headquarters in the Norwegian capital Oslo, killing at least one person. The offices of Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg were damaged extensively — a government spokeswoman said he was safe. Police said a number of people were injured in the city center explosion. No-one has said they were behind the attack, which witnesses said could be heard across the capital."
The result of an old threat (Score:3, Informative)
According to ABC news:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/oslo-explosion-blast-result-massive-vehicle-bomb-sources/story?id=14134197 [go.com]
Earlier this month, a Norwegian prosecutor filed terrorism charges against an Iraqi-born cleric who had allegedly threatened the lives of Norwegian politicians. Mullah Krekar, the founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam, said in a news conference in 2010 that if he was deported from Norway he would be killed and, therefore, Norwegian politicians deserved the same fate, according to an AP report. The Norwegian government had considered deporting Krekar because he was seen as a national security threat.
Re:The result of an old threat (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not the result. This is part 1. Part 2 depends on the action of the government and people. You see, in all cases of what terrorism has done itself was to kill a few people. This only affected a reasonable tiny segment of the population. More are affected by drunks on the road every year.
The important part of terrorism is the part 2 - the so called reaction by the people and the government. They could either,
1. treat this as a criminal act and hold the responsible parties to account, or
2. undermine their own freedoms in their own fear of the "enemy", stop trusting one another and view anyone that appears different as the "enemy". This is the aim of the terrorist, not the initial damage.
So far, the terrorist are quite a ways ahead, if you ask me. A simple bomb here, a bomb there. A handful of people die. People demand action. And soon enough they look suspicious at any minority, become radicals themselves and destroy their own societies simply out of fear. The victims becomes the terrorists themselves. And the cycle continues until we end up with Afghanistan style society.
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Terrible idea, would be used against you (Score:3)
But also issue a warning saying any support of an extraterritorial terrorist attack originating from within these areas, whether it be financial, moral, or man-power will guarantee the immediate destruction of a randomly selected city or geographical location without the slightest regard for damage or casualties
This killing of random civilians ON PURPOSE is far more evil to my mind than the situation we have now, where we are primarily fighting real enemy fighters, and trying to help the population of vari
Re:The result of an old threat (Score:4, Insightful)
Its past the time for the US and others to remove all of their troops from the middle east and other trouble spots and let them sort their own problems out and kill each other in peace.
Hey! That's is exactly what we did in Afghanistan. How did that work out?
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Its past the time for the US and others to remove all of their troops from the middle east and other trouble spots and let them sort their own problems
That would work fine if the radical elements of Islam were content to stay where they're at. But the various radical Islamist movements in the last few decades have shown a great deal of ambition at taking over and radicalizing more and more countries (not just in the middle east, but asia and africa as well). Those ambitions were bound to clash with the west eventually.
The problem with the west is that we really don't know how to fight global wars anymore and aren't really comfortable facing certain kinds
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This is a right-wing/Mossad operation against Norway. The shooter at the AUF camp was a blonde European. Norway is supporting full recognition as a state by the UN.
On 10.07.2002, Mrs. Eva Kristin Hansen, the leader of the Norwegian Labor Party Youth Movement (AUF), called upon the Attorney General of Norway to investigate whether "Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other Israeli leaders can be put on trial for crimes they committed" (http://norskisraelsenter.no/engl/auf-sharon-vg-engl.htm). Kristin
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And yes, a "few dozen random, organized
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Actually the laughter went the other way. After the attacks the Taliban offered to hand over Binladdin **THREE TIMES** to a neutral country if the US would provide any evidence of his connection. Instead Shrub's administration essentially said, "We don't need no stinkin' evidence, give him to us becaus
Re:The result of an old threat (Score:4, Informative)
Unrelated, he has been saying the same things for years. His terrorist group is in the Kurd areas (Turkey/Iraq/Iran), far away from Norway. The only reason he is still here is that we do not extradite people to countries where they risk the death penalty, and we haven't received binding enough guarantees from either the Iraqi nor the Kurd governments (Northern Iraq still being a somewhat self-regulated Kurdish province).
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Perhaps if you did then the criminals who flee to your country would have an incentive to be on their best behaviour while they're there.
Re:The result of an old threat (Score:4, Informative)
It looks like the "policeman" who gunned down dozens of youths at the Social Democratic youth camp was also seen in central Oslo moments before the explosions, and witness reports state that he spoke a dialect of Norwegian coming from the eastern part of the country. It sounds to more more like the work of a right-wing extremist than islamist extremists. This could be Norway's "Timothy McVeigh"..
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Re:The result of an old threat (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002651290254
Religious views: Christian
'nuf said! - It's the Norwegian counter part of Timothy McWeigh. Nothing to do with Al Queda or any other Arab connection - more similarities with the Norwegian "Tea-Party"-look-a-likes.
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I'm confused. Why was the guy ever allowed into Norway to begin with?
Update from local news (NRK) (Score:4, Informative)
Also shootings. (Score:5, Informative)
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I'm impressed they were able to capture him alive. Frequently with gunmen like this they go out the Suicide by Cop way.
Maybe not clear enough (Score:5, Informative)
This is why it's on /. (Score:2, Insightful)
More pictures (Score:2)
I work there (Score:5, Informative)
I work stright across the street just from the prime ministers office and was on my way there when the bomb went off and came there not many minutes later. Because of vacation, I think most of the buildings were empty. Almost every shop in down town Oslo has or is shutting down. The public transportation is working more or less as normal, but there are a lot of people down there filming with their phones and calling relatives.
A lot of windows are broken and I saw one probably 400+ meters away blown out. People are very calm and just interested in more information.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14254705
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I saw one probably 400+ meters away blown out
The shock wave reflects from solid surfaces and the reflection sums with the main wave and other reflections, so you can have one window getting much more shock that an adjacent window gets, and damage at considerable distance from the center of the blast.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Norway (Score:2, Insightful)
This should never have happened in a saner world.
Very early speculation (Score:3, Insightful)
The attack was on a government office, so it's still too early to say whether it was an act of terrorism or war.
Al Qaeda and the organizations allied to it in "the Resistance" [blogspot.com] are the most obvious suspects, being that they are at war with everyone else in the world and they have the talent and desire to do it.
The attack could be in response to the recent filing of charges against Mullah Krekar, leader of Ansar al-Islam [alarabiya.net] which was one of the first groups to rename itself to "al-Qaeda in Iraq" after the US invaded.
The motivation could also be the Jyllands-Posten cartoons [zombietime.com] that were published in a Denmark newspaper. The Muslim Brotherhood and Hizbut Tahrir encouraged attacks on Norwegian embassies after the Norwegian tabloid Dagbladet republished the cartoons.
Norway has been active in the bombing of Libya. [newsinenglish.no] The attack may have come in retaliation from the Libyan government, which has pledged to strike back at its attackers any way it could, or it may have come from unaffiliated right-wing Muslims who see the attack on Libya as kaffir invading the ummah.
It could be someone else. Remember that the Oklahoma City bombing was a couple of white ultra-Christians. Everyone thought it was Hezbollah at first. The attack could have come from Jews who are pissed off about European spy agencies funding the the NIF, B'tselem, Peace Now, Human Rights Watch, and all the lies they tell about Israel. It could have been a nut from an opposing political party or a farmer with a grievance about a change in subsidies and the knowledge to make a fertilizer bomb. The only thing we truly know is that we don't know yet, so wait a day or two for the investigators to do their jobs.
Here's Reuters's speculation. [reuters.com]
Captcha: compute. If anyone was complaining that this was not news for nerds, it is now.
Troll Attack (Score:4, Funny)
The terrorist story is a cover-up.
What really happened, is a young Jutnar (a species of large mountain troll) wandered into Oslo through the sewer system. It was eventually destroyed near the capital building when courageous members of the TSS removed a manhole cover above the troll. Sadly, the dying troll exploded in a massive burst destroying several city blocks.
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Wonder what the PUFF bounty on that was...
Norwegian Spring? (Score:2)
No doubt they're protesting their brutal living conditions and depressed economy.
No, wait....
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That's clearly an impossible thesis - it's way too friggin' cold in Norway to have a concept of "Spring"
Foreign terrorism? (Score:2)
It's not "terror" (Score:2)
Who got scared? Who was terrorized?
Not every explosion is "terror". Terrorism (except as defined by the US Govt.) requires causing terror.
This was an explosion. I'm glad it wasn't worse... ...but it wasn't terror.
It's time to quit calling everything "terror".
E
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A car bomb in the street out front of an office is a terribly inefficient way to murder someone, if at least one of your goals isn't to terrorize anyone else.
A car bomb is also a classic terrorist tool.
By the principle of parsimony, it's reasonable to assume that this was a terrorist act unless extraordinary evidence to the contrary is presented.
It's time to quit calling everything "terror".
It's time to quit calling everything that isn't terrifying "terror." Car bombs parked out front of government offices will probably never be not terrifying. So you
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While there tends to be a nerd slant, I think the general lean is towards stories that matter to people. There are numerous examples of historical stories that didn't have a tech lean where there were still extremely interesting and informative discussions that followed.
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Re:And this is on /. why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Large (some estimate 100kg of explosives) bombs against the headquarters of western governments far removed from any local conflict are rather rare. This is the equivalent of someone blowing up the White House or Downing Street in the UK. It might not reach quite up to the UK subway bombing or the Madrid train bombing but this was way more than one man with a suicide vest.
Re:And this is on /. why? (Score:4, Insightful)
While granted terror attacks in Norway are probably pretty rare
Actually, nothing like this has happened in Norway since WWII, and AFAIK no known terror attacks whatsoever has been perpetrated on Norwegian soil in modern times. That might be the reason it's made the news worldwide, I'm still not sure why this is on Slashdot.
On a side note I work at the University of Oslo, I heard the blast clearly from my office (believed it was thunder at the time). An hour prior to the explosion I suggested to colleagues leaving early and having a beer at this pub [google.com], now I'm happy they declined... While I'm very conscious that this shall not influence my everyday life in any way in the future, it *is* a strong reminder that even our peaceful country is vulnerable.
so a million people dying in east africa (Score:3)
of starvation is not on?
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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"News for nerds", does a terrorist in a European capital count as being of interest to nerds? I think it does.
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Unless your mother's basement happens to be in Oslo, I think not.
There's a difference between "News for nerds" and "News for people in general, of which nerds may be included though it isn't really aimed at them"
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You're actually thinking of Australia.
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Ninjas, pirates, cowboys, cyborgs, and vikings are /.'s top demographic categories.
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1up! I know I fall at least into 2 of those categories!
Re:And this is on /. why? (Score:5, Funny)
Should be under politics (Score:5, Insightful)
if anywhere.
Then again, terrorism does affect nerds. I know many love to ignore it, but it is crap like this which ends up getting the laws passed that we do discuss and do not like.
So, I can see a connection. If we don't closely examine one of the source causes how are we ever to stop the erosion of our rights? What is it going to take to bring these people in a modern society where they coexist with others on equal terms, or at least on terms which don't make people look over their shoulder every time they pass or have fear of cars parked where the should not be?
I think people make too much of this kind of thing (Score:3)
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I was wondering the same thing. Yet more proof slashdot has fallen. This in no way belongs on slashdot.
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I thought this was stuff for nerds.
Breaking news: Steve Jobs bombs Oslo after finding out Apple slipped 31% YoY in the tablet market.
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Although I feel you're generally right on this, I think it is very important. There's been more than a few rather important news stories on here that just don't show up on the American telly. A British friend of mine had wagered that there wouldn't be anything about the recent News of the World scandal in America on television, and I agreed that he was probably right. Imagine my surprise when ABC leads with that story at their 6 o'clock news.
I often have to resort to the BBC for seeing what's going on in th
Re:And this is on /. why? (Score:5, Interesting)
While I was abroad, I found it very interesting that back in the U.S., I didn't hear about U.S. Solders being killed in "The Wars." But abroad I heard about it all the time on the news. Although I knew that the media in the U.S. is fairly "censored" (not comparable to other countries such as N. Korea or China), it was amazing how much they were really keeping from us (regarding the war).
More recently, the story about the ATF sending weapons to Latin America - though it is still a "developing story," trying to find images of the heavy weapons confiscated has seemed difficult to obtain! But on the Spanish speaking news mediums, they have plenty of footage of just this! Why don't we get to see the same thing? We get shown the "new rifles sold in mass quantities by legit stores" but not the heavy anti armor and vehicle mounted weapons that you just can not buy from stores.
So while this at a glance might not seem as a story for nerds, it is appreciated by nerds... soon enough we'll learn about the specific bomb type and mechanism that was used and we'll discuss many things about that. But don't disregard it just because on the front page news it's "only a human tragedy/act of terrorism."
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/. is home to a large and/or very vocal tinfoil hat ebil gubmint gonna enslave us all crowd and they need their daily "this has gotta be a false flag" fix or they really go crazy.
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"Are we reporting news in general?"
Yes, because "no one here keeps up with news on other websites" and /. needs page hits.
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There's not much that's nerdier than Norwegians.
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How do you cook then? Electric stoves kinda suck.
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Do they use gas heating in buildings that large?
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Typically either oil-fueled furnaces (in the process of being phased out many places here) or steam-based heating based on garbage incinerators.
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The car was damaged by the explosion, but if you look at the building stuff was blown out, not in. That car was not the bomb.
This was a very big bomb, if the bomb had been in a car there would be little left of the car.
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Thanks! Get answers fast around here.
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Would you agree that they are a bunch or meat heads?
Re:Looks like (Score:5, Informative)
Not necessarily, if the shooting at the social democrat youth camp just now (by a fake police officer) is related then I'm betting on local nazi crackpots...
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Did you read the article? the part about the Muslim terrorists? no? I thought so.
Re:Looks like (Score:5, Interesting)
The BBC article? Yes, but I've also been following Norwegian and Swedish news and who did this has yet to be confirmed, what has been confirmed though is that there has also been a shooting at a social democrat youth camp, and for some reason the nordic neo-nazis hate social democrats which is why I pointed out that if these events were related then this makes it a lot more likely that this is a domestic terrorism incident and not islamic terrorists.
No one knows jack right now (Score:3)
It looks like the "oil and gas" ministry was bombed. The Prime Minister was apparently targeted too. This could be anyone from Al Qaeda to some Earth First type of group. All the speculation is useless until someone actually comes up with some evidence and some suspects, or until there's a credible claim of credit for the attacks.
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They probably thought that would blow up the biggest.
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Nordic neo-nazis now that sounds like a surly bunch.
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Nordic neo-nazis now that sounds like a surly bunch.
Show me what's in your wallet, motherfucker!
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The religion of peace has struck again.
It doesn't sound like anyone has claimed responsibility or any likely perpetrator has been identified by authorities.
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Archie Bunker, eh? (Score:2)
At least you have an appropriate nick...
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Extremists have done it again.
FTFY.
Re:Looks like (Score:4, Insightful)
LUKE 19:27
"But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them - bring them here and kill them in front of me."
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2. There are more theologians who have interpreted Jesus' teachings as calling for nonviolence then there are theologians who have interpreted Jesus' teachings as calling for the slaughter of nonbelievers. I am quite confident that the same cannot be said of the teachings of Mohammed (although I would be pleasantly surprised to discover that I am mistaken).
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1. Are you saying that the Koran does not command the killing of "infidels"? That it is merely passages taken out of context?
Well, duh. I'm not a Muslim, and I know that much. The Koran has a lot of passages about fighting wars with enemies of Islam, who were a combination of pagans, Christians and Jews. However, it also has passages about treating Christians and Jews fairly and allowing them practice their religions, and passages stating that they can achieve salvation (or whatever the Islamic equivalent, not sure here). And more generally, it has passages about not picking fights with people who don't pick fights with you.
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That statement is why the Lutheran Vatican keeps his prophecies locked away.
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"The problem with the internet is that anyone can make a claim and never have to back it up" - Abraham Lincoln
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There are several other instances in the Bible where God commands the destruction of the unbeliever.
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Are they? There are 1.3 billion muslims, I don't see more than a scant few doing terrorist acts, and they tend to kill other Muslims.
You are moving into "we must kill the Jews to save Europe" territory. No wonder you post as an anonymous coward.
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*raises hand* In fact, I've walked past ground zero twice a day for the last couple of years.
Re:This Is Not News For Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
This is news for everyone.
Nerds are just a subset.
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Some people like oppressive dictators.
Some are fighting to keep that asshole in power.
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> if it were a government or military target it would be a legitimate and justifiable attack?
GP never said that - please don't bring asinine political twist & spin tactics here.
Terrorism is generally understood to be random violence against civilians going about their daily business.
Whether an act of violence targeted against military or government is "legitimate and justifiable" is entirely in the eyes of the beholder. But it's not the same thing as an attack on a civilian crowd.
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I would still consider this a terrorist act, primarily because of the motivation... not to cripple enemy effectiveness, but to instill general fear in the population. However, it's different than an attack on, say, a public market.
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Timothy McVeigh was not a terrorist?
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So who really did it?
I can't wait to hear this.
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Clearly a bomb is an "attack", it wasn't someone mining the side of a mountain... So attack seems perfectly reasonable.
Given the size it's very unlikely to have been a simple murder. So terror seems perfectly reasonable too.
And did you seriously just imply that Timothy McVeighs actions were not a '"terror" attack'?
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At the time of this positing no one has claimed responsibility for the attack. It could just as easily be another Timothy McVeigh.
It's irresponsible to label the bombing with "terror" or "attack" until the purpose is known
Uh, if it's a car bomb... and that's been confirmed... then yeah, it's a terrorist attack of some kind.
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Story would have led with something about the smell if it were, you'd think.
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the west is engaged in an ideological war with Islam
That is the view of Islam. The West, however, is in a war with islamic militants, who have that same view.
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Haggis is delightful. Even the passable stuff in a tin.