Jesus Christ. My brother & sister-in-law live in Oslo with their 3 kids. Just phoned the mother-in-law. No word so far. Chances are v. slim any problems, but it's a worry...
The shooter was apparently Nordic looking. On Sky they're suggesting that he must be some kind of Islamic convert rather than anything else... There's no reason why this maniac didn't just react to the bombing and take a chance.
There are no answers though, so we'll need to wait and see what happens.
BBC is reporting the shooter was Norweigan (link) and was linked to the bombing.
The bomb target was a gov't office and the camp was full of youth labour party members. The gunman was (reportedly) dressed as a policeman and was tall and blonde, according to The Guardian (link)
The 32-year-old Norwegian man arrested for gunning down children on the holiday island of Utoya has been named locally as Anders Behring Breivik. Described as 6ft tall and blond, he is reported to have arrived on the island of Utoya 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. More than 30 are believed to have been killed - seven in Oslo and between 25 to 30 on Utoya Island, 50 miles north of the capital. Police have said the attacks do not appear to be linked to Islamist terrorism but they are linking the two incidents.
Initially, however, it was not known what the motives were - whether the gunman had been radicalised and was part of a militant Muslim group waging Jihad or was alternatively trying to further a home-grown political cause.
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The media were desperate for this to be an Islamic terrorist attack. When I heard them on Sky earlier they were seriously pushing the idea that he was a deliberate ploy by Al Qaeda who 'have plans to commit atrocities using local people who have been radicalised'.
Anyway, regarding the pic, is that Masonic regalia?
I watched the disgraceful Islamophobic rantings on the BBC and Sky News last night in mounting disbelief. Security correspondent and security expert vied with each other to tell us that the dreadful attacks in Norway were the work of al-Qaida. One extraordinary American, introduced as from a Centre for Combating Extremism, explained that these Norwegian jihadists had international links and plans to attack London and the New York subway. Norway was a target, we were repeatedly told, because of its NATO membership.
There was at least six solid hours of this poisonous bullshit. I did not pick up on one single person who said that this probably was not Islamic terrorism – despite the glaringly obvious fact that the atrocity had a Norwegian domestic political agenda, being an attack on the Prime Minister’s office, and on a youth camp of the governing party. The internet was buzzing for hours with the news that the attacker on Utoya Island was blonde, without the broadcast media mentioning it. The American security expert I mention above had that base covered – he had obviously seen those reports, but did not mention them. However he said that jihadist groups had probably recruited European looking operatives to carry out the attacks, because they were aware that security services “consciously or unconsciously operated racial profiling.”
This morning Al Jazeera and Russia Today were carrying the news that the attacker was Anders Breivik – and even a picture of him – while the BBC and Sky still were not, and while they had stopped the blatant Islamophobic ranting, had still not admitted it was not an Islamic militant attack.
I would love to believe that this incident would cause the media to reassess the value of the numerous “security experts” whose companies, institutes, funding, profile and standards of living have been spectacularly boosted by the “War on Terror”. But I doubt it.
All terrorism is terrible. Islamic extremist terrorism is terrible. But not all terrorism is Islamic extremist. To presume it is, is just as valid as to assume that any shooting in the UK is carried out by a black person. If the BBC reacted to the next news of a shooting or stabbing, by six hours about crime in the black community, when it turned out the perpetrators are white, there would rightly be outrage. This is no different.
UPDATE
The mainstream media and those “Security experts” are now struggling to cover up and justify their blatant Islamophobia. The New York Times was right at the forefront of the Islamophobic ranting, attributing the bombing to a non-existent Jihadist group and then being quoted all across the airwaves as the authority for that attribution. It has now published this amazing self-justificatory bullshit:
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.”
All the mainstream media are rushing to take down their crazed Islamophobic rantings from their websites this morning – the BBC did it just twenty minutes ago, and had a short period in consequence when they had nothing up on Norway. I expect newspaper sites will be doing the same. Print editions, of course, do not have that ability.
Mainstream media – all the hate and lies they can peddle. What would really be an interesting public inquiry, would be the links between “security” and “defence” correspondents and the security services whose propaganda they spread. I should love to know what security service briefings were behind yesterday’s Islamophobic lies.
Here's a translation of what the killer had written on a Norwegian forum:
“I have on some occasions discussed with SIOE [Stop Islamification Of Europe] and EDL and recommended them to use conscious strategies. The tactics of the EDL is to "entice" an overreaction from Jihad Youth / Extreme-Marxists, something they have succeeded in several times already. The reaction has been repeatedly shown on the news which has booster EDLs ranks high. This has also benefited BNP. WinWin for both.
But I must say I am very impressed with how quickly they have grown but this has to do with smart tactical choice by management. EDL is an example and a Norwegian version is the only way to prevent Flash / SOS to harass Norwegian cultural conservatives from other fronts. Creating a Norwegian EDL should be No. 3 on the agenda after we have started up a cultural conservative newspaper with national distribution.
The agenda of the Norwegian cultural conservative movement over the next 5 years are therefore:
1 Newspaper with national distribution
2 Working for the control of several NGOs
3 Norwegian EDL”
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you can see the full contents of his posts at document.no by clicking here (English translation via google)
Masonic apron colours are often regional.... I'm told in Scotland they are mostly navy and burgundy with some gold. Other places tend to go with the light blue/white/gold mixture. And all are decorated very differently. The one in the picture looks quite new, but you will see many older aprons around as people inherit ones from family members/friends, some are refurbished.
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