Norway’s special police intelligence unit PST announced that the overall threat of terror from extreme groups on both the right and left side in Norway hasn’t changed as a result of last week’s attacks. Meanwhile, the man behind those attacks underwent a second full day of questioning at the main police station in Oslo.
PST claimed that “the threat from the right-wing extreme organizations hasn’t changed,” indicating they believe last week’s confessed terrorist Anders Behring Breivik acted alone. “There is nothing in the threat evaluations we have that makes it necessary to raise the preparedness level,” state police director Øystein Mæland told NRK.no.
‘Unknown activity’
PST wrote in a press release that recruitment to anti-Islamic groups in Norway has so far been limited. “There is, meanwhile, considerable and partly unknown activity on various social media sites where anti-Islamic points of view are put forward,” PST wrote.
Investigators have not been able to confirm Breivik’s earlier claim that he belongs to a European network that will carry out politically motivated violent acts. Nor do they think it’s probable that Islamic extremists in Norway will carry out any retaliation as a direct response to the July 22 attacks.
Calm under questioning
Breivik was transported once again on Friday from Ila Prison in Bærum, where he’s being held in full isolation, to the main Oslo police station at Grønland where he spent the entire day answering police questions. Police described Breivik, charged with killing 77 persons last week, as “amazingly calm” and “more than willing” to answer questions and explain why he bombed government headquarters in Oslo and then gunned down 69 persons at the Labour Party youth organization’s summer camp.
They would not detail his responses but defense attorney Geir Lippestad said he still has expressed no regrets for his murderous spree and still calls it “a necessary action” to fight what he calls a Muslim takeover of Norway and western Europe.
Lippestad refused to comment on reports in Norwegian media that Breivik had also planned other terrorist attacks on Friday. Newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) reported that some American researchers fear Breivik may have developed chemical weapons of mass destruction, and they want security experts all over the world to search for possible cells that could develop them further.
DN reported that The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) has said that the massacre Breivik carried out on the island of Utøya on July 22 is the world’s worst mass murder conducted by one person.
Views and News from Norway/Nina Berglund
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