– I was really scared and thought that now I am dying. This is how a young man describes what he witnessed on Saturday night. He does not want his name in print. Nor picture. He is not open about his orientation to the family, he says when news talks to him shortly after the attack. CARE: People hug each other after the mass shooting in Oslo. Photo: Camilla Svennæs Bergland / news Next to him on the asphalt sits his friend. With his head in his hands, he says that he has just seen a man shot. Little did these two young men, sitting on the ground in central Oslo this June night, know that they had just been victims of what PST would later refer to as an extreme Islamist terrorist act. BLOCKED OFF: An area around where the incident was cordoned off by police tape on Saturday night. Photo: Camilla Svennæs Bergland / news – The attack appears to be terror due to the way it has been carried out. The security service emphasizes that they are investigating it as Islamist-motivated terror, and due to the reported contacts into Norwegian extreme Islamist circles, says Petter Nesser. He works as a researcher at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment (FFI) and sits as one of 15 members of the newly established extremism commission where the goal is, among other things, to help prepare the country’s ability to prevent radicalization and the emergence of extremism. Attacks he points out include the terror that hit a Christmas market in Strasbourg in 2018, and the Vienna terror where five lost their lives. A terrorist act must, by definition, be rational, politically motivated, suitable for spreading fear beyond the target of the attack and have a certain degree of planning. Photo: Camilla Svennæs Bergland / news Not the typical goal The fact that the perpetrator must have – according to witnesses – used expressions such as “Allahu Akbar” is also typical of such terrorist attacks, Nesser emphasizes. He points out that the queer environment is not usually the most typical target for jihadists in Europe, but that there have been some examples of planned and carried out attacks. Here he highlights the terrorist plan against pride in the Netherlands in 2018. TERROR: Petter Nesser, chief researcher, believes that the mass shooting in Oslo can be defined as terror. Photo: Stig Jaarvik / news The accused, Zaniar Matapour, is charged with terrorism, two murders and attempted murder. Defender John Christian Elden has been critical of the PST’s assessment of the attack as terrorism, and believes this is first and foremost a murder case. – There I think that the court has had more ice in the stomach. The court tried the police’s insight into terrorism, but found no basis for granting that request. At present, there was no basis for good reason to suspect terrorism. The court takes it on earth, so far we have a murder case, no terrorism case. CRUSHED GLASS: Outside the bar Per on the corner. Photo: Camilla Svennæs Bergland / news When asked what Elden thinks about Nesser thinking that the mass shooting is similar to an IS-motivated attack, Elden answers the following: – It may be IS as well, I do not know. But there is nothing particularly distinctive about a man walking around shooting. We have seen this constantly in the USA without anyone claiming that it is IS-inspired. The motive So far, Matapour has refused to be questioned by the police. The accused’s explanation will say something about motive, and the motive in such cases will be extremely important, says terrorist researcher Jan Oskar Engene at the University of Bergen. – Considering the setting in which the act was carried out – with shooting at crowds and just before pride, it is inevitable that the concept of terror is used. But the question of motivation will also be important, he says. RESEARCHER: Jan Oskar Engene, terrorism researcher at the University of Bergen Photo: Eivind Senneset / UIB He emphasizes that it is not unusual, during such dramatic events, that there is a definition tug-of-war. – The media has a need to call it something. Politicians have a need to distance themselves and place it in a category, and the police must take the penal code into account. The concept of terror is the strongest we have. – How do you distinguish hate crime and terrorism in this context? – Hate crime and terrorism do not have to be mutually exclusive categories. Both are motivated, which in some contexts can be more difficult to prove than action performed in itself. BEWARE: A policeman near where the shots fell. Photo: Camilla Svennæs Bergland / news Contact with Arfan Bhatti On Saturday it became known that the terrorist suspect and the central Islamist Arfan Bhatti have had contact. The accused has previously been convicted of several offenses and is known by PST, and a ruling from 2021 states that he “has had mental problems for a number of years such as PTSD, delusions and difficulty concentrating” – We do not currently have enough information about the mental health condition to decide whether it is serious enough to say that this is not terrorism, says Nesser and adds: – As the situation stands, in my view the information the security service has provided is heavier.
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– Similar to IS-motivated terrorist attacks – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
