Explosion in central Oslo

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14252515

by anteht • 15 years ago

161 75 15 years ago

bbc.co.uk

Daniel_Newby• 15 years ago

More discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2793745

netmau53• 15 years ago

Is there any reason to want to terrorize Norway?

koski• 15 years ago

They have been very active in Libya ...

elektronaut• 15 years ago

And Afghanistan.

InclinedPlane5• 15 years ago

I'm curious, why would you imagine that al qaeda et al wouldn't want to attack Norway?

netmau53• 15 years ago

I suppose bad people do bad things, regardless of an honorable ideology. Still, I see Norway in the same way as I see Canada. They do not take strong statements for or against others, they do not engage in the affairs of others, they have had a long (modern) history of peaceful relations/intentions. The most aggressive thing they've done is commit handfuls of troops to a multinational "peacekeeping" missions.

I guess I just feel like they have more important enemies, from their perspective, to attack.

maxharris• 15 years ago

Norway is a Western nation.

smallblacksun• 15 years ago

They have (or at least had) troops in Afghanistan and participated in the NATO campaign against Libya.

tlb• 15 years ago

Norwegian oil companies are drilling in Islamic countries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statoil_operations_by_country

Oslo is known for the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords, an attempt at peace between Palestine and Israel.

gonehome• 15 years ago

You can watch Al-Jazeera English live for free here: http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/ They're covering the Oslo story right now.

g123g• 15 years ago

The last peaceful bastion in the world has been take over.

bh42222• 15 years ago

Uhm.... Switzerland?

ChuckMcM• 15 years ago

Good luck with that. :-)

sambe• 15 years ago

Switzerland had a gunman walk into a council office and start executing people a few years (5?) ago.

jacquesm• 15 years ago

CNN has a timeline that speaks of multiple bombings:

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/22/blast-rips-through-norw...

uggedal2• 15 years ago

I was at work 3 blocks away from the bombing. If there were several bombings, they were detonated simultanously. I heard a single bang and our building shook once.

I'll add that the blast was unlike anything I've withnessed, even 3 blocks away.

kristofferR2• 15 years ago

It was only a single explosion. There were rumours of multiple explosions, but they were not true. People mistook glass falling from buildings and fake CG YouTube videos (Sky News retweeted it), but the rumors were quickly denied in the Norwegian media.

chippy• 15 years ago

apparently the shooter on the island was nordic, tall, blonde in appearance. (according to tv2.no news)

InclinedPlane5• 15 years ago

That doesn't necessarily rule out al qaeda involvement, there have been caucasian taliban et al before. But we shouldn't jump to conclusions until we have the facts regardless.

guard-of-terra2• 15 years ago

Arabs tend to be caucasian as in Europoid - they're semitic, and semites are usually Europoid. I don't have a word for what you wanted to say readily available, sorry.

uggedal2• 15 years ago

The Minister of Justice just confirmed that the shooter was Norwegian in a press conference. They have not confirmed his etnisity though.

cheez4• 15 years ago

I remember the Oklahoma bombing and the first picture was of some random brown muslim guy. Turns out, it was a white athiest.

Look up the FBI stats on radical muslim bombings on US soil vs radical christian vs radical athiest bombings. In fact, I seem to recall that radical jews had more attacks on US soil than radical muslims.

And since 9/11 was so neatly sown up, we'll never really know who was truly behind it.

vahidR• 15 years ago

I Can't understand. Why this happened to such a peaceful nation ?!

stcredzero3• 15 years ago

The problem with distributed command & control, is that sometimes small groups of people working on their own initiative can talk themselves into wacked-out stuff. There is a lesson here for startups.

EDIT: And by "wacked-out" I mean, "wack by even the standards of Al Qaeda." 9-11 didn't help their cause in my eyes, but I can see how they justified it to themselves. Whoever bombed Oslo - is a WTF on top of a WTF.

cheez4• 15 years ago

Obviously the solution is to control everyone.

orblivion• 15 years ago

They say a humble foreign policy will prevent shit like this, but I was always hesitated to accept it wholesale.

ujal• 15 years ago

They are involved in Afghanistan...

dagw• 15 years ago

Norway has had troops active in Afghanistan since basically day 1.

kristofferR2• 15 years ago

Here's some footage from the attack location just seconds after the explosion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciQvqBgK-nY

guruz2• 15 years ago

I'm living in Oslo.

With my friends here there is already a Facebook worm going on which is supposed to show some video footage about the explosion but when you click it you're just spreading/liking the video.

Shocking to see how fast spammers are.

blantonl• 15 years ago

I'd bet these guys have templates in place just for major events - especially terrorist attacks.

I recall on Sept 11th the sheer rush from users to consume information on the Internet. If something like 9/11 ever happens again anywhere in the world, spammers will jump right on the event like flies on sh*t.

pyre4• 15 years ago

It's already happening. There is this example, and I recall one of the recent Christchurch earthquakes had someone complaining about similar spamming of a hashtag related to the quake on Twitter.

guruz2• 15 years ago

Looks like others noticed too:

http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=11328

swah• 15 years ago

We need to partition HN. I love your input, but "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."

lukeschlather• 15 years ago

I remember someone noting that "If the world ended, I'm confident it would be covered immediately on HN."

I think this qualifies as something of sufficient importance that it should be here just so everyone is aware. We could do without the comments though. Maybe a "no comment" sort of link for events of vital importance that are off-topic? It would make a lot more sense than disabling comments for YC job postings.

nitrogen• 15 years ago

I'll second your first paragraph, but would prefer to leave the comments. HN is one of my two primary news sources, largely due to it being the only place I've found this quality of discussion. When something really significant happens, I enjoy participating in a discussion about it with the HN crowd.

alain94040• 15 years ago

Agreed. That's why I flagged this article (not that it mattered much). It's new I care about, but it was the #1 headline on CNN and every other European news site so I don't need to see it on HN.

Eventh2• 15 years ago

The name and photo of the arrested man has been leaked. Here is his facebook and twitter page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002651290254 https://twitter.com/#!/AndersBBreivik

sixbit• 15 years ago

He's been identified: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/22/anders-behring-brei...

ristretto• 15 years ago

what 's a "ring wing"?

epynonymous• 15 years ago

sorry but this article is absolutely awful, my sympathies to the affected victims, but there's not a single analysis of the situation. was it terrorist based, was it a hate crime, why is this stoltenberg guy such an apparent tool, what does his party do, and i love how the article makes an ass out of stoltenberg by possibly mis-quoting him as someone who has a god complex by stating that all govt ministers are ok, what about those injured and killed!? unimportant? obviously the article is against stoltenberg unless he's really that much of an incompassionate dickwad

the police in oslo much be very tight lipped, this must also be the first crime aince medieval times :)

Eventh2• 15 years ago

Police just confirmed that at least 80 is killed at Utøya, earlier reports were 9-10. All killed by one gunman, and the deaths (at least 7) from the bomb in Oslo is in addition to these 80. :(

vegardx• 15 years ago

It's been an emotional roller coaster, and things just got even worse. I don't have words that can describe my feelings right now.

-- A Norwegian Guy

aw3c22• 15 years ago

And everyone jumped to conclusions that it surely was islamist extremist terrorists, al-qeada or the like. But no, it was a right-wing nationalist anti-islamist (apparently single) guy. I am so glad.

umright• 15 years ago

You're so glad, really? This guy was apparently Christian, so I hope that makes you feel better about the religious aspect of it. Extremists and fundamentalists are all the same, regardless of what they're worshiping.

Also, given that Islamic extremists would be the most obvious conclusion, how is it unreasonable to draw such assumptions, especially when a supposed Islamic group claimed responsibility?

aw3c22• 15 years ago

Well, why would Islamic extremists be the most obvious conclusion? That is exactly the manipulated mindset I was glad not to see confirmed.

pyre4• 15 years ago

  > Extremists and fundamentalists are all the same,
  > regardless of what they're worshiping

Wouldn't this make it less likely to be Islamic extremists vs fundamentalists from <insert religion>?

  > given that Islamic extremists would be the
  > most obvious conclusion

Because Muslims are more prone to being crazy and/or extreme than Christians (or people of <insert religion>)? Because Islamic extremists are the only people that use guerrilla tactics and explosive devices to get their point across?

known• 15 years ago

Man started writing ~5000 years back. http://goo.gl/12i7v Islam is a matured religion because it is written after Judaism/Christianity/Hinduism

pyre4• 15 years ago

I fail to see how the points:

  > Man started writing ~5000 years back

and

  > Islam is a matured religion because it is
  > written after Judaism/Christianity/Hinduism

relate to the post your are replying to other than the keywords 'Islam' and 'religion.'

jamaicahest• 15 years ago

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."

150 people don't read the guidelines?

pyre4• 15 years ago

Apparently neither do you:

  > Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is
  > inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or
  > offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag"
  > link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If
  > you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

thomasfl• 15 years ago

The streets here in Oslo is filled with patrolling soldiers now. Normally you only see a few policemen, and they are almost always unarmed.

The guy they have arrested for the massacre may face 21 years in prison.

Explosion in central Oslo

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