Murderer with connections

MORE than 90 people have been murdered in Norway in a well-planned operation by a crazed right-wing killer. As more evidence is sought, it appears that Anders Behring Breivik, the 32-year-old Norwegian whom police have arrested, had contacts with far-Right groups at home and abroad, including the English Defence League (EDL) in Britain.

As the first news came over BBC News of the Oslo explosion on Friday we kept getting commentators referring to al Qaida, Afghanistan, and cartoons of the prophet. The horrific news that the gunman's main target were teenagers at a Labour youth summer camp did not stop this weighted speculation.

The Sun front-page yesterday repeated the "Al Qaida" theme and proclaimed it "NORWAY'S 9/11"

By the time the real picture emerged, of who had been arrested, the Norway killings had been replaced in tabloid headlines by the death of singer Amy Winehouse, and one would have had to search hard through the online edition of the Sun for any hint that Anders Brehing Breivik was more than a lone hunter and "gun nut".

ANDERS BREHING BREIVIK boasted links to far right groups across Europe.

Breivik was arrested on Utøya island where he shot and killed at least 85 people, mostly teenagers, after bombing Oslo's government district just hours before. Dressed as a police officer, he ordered the teenagers to gather round him before opening fire, and then went after those trying to flee, killing some who were swimming.

"Nut" or not, Breivik, a freemason, Christian fundamentalist and former member of Norway's right-wing Progress party, had posted a manifesto setting out his views and aims, and boasted of his contacts with the English Defence League and other anti-Islamic European organisations.

“We are not sure whether he was alone or had help,” a police official, Roger Andersen, said at a televised news conference. “What we know is that he is right wing and a Christian fundamentalist.”

Although some papers quoted police as saying they were not looking for international connections, Norwegian prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, said Norwegian officials were working with foreign intelligence agencies to see if there was any international involvement in the slaughter. "We have running contact with other countries' intelligence services," he said.

In a 1,500-page manifesto, posted on the Web hours before the attacks, Breivik recorded a day-by-day diary of months of planning for the attacks, and claimed to be part of a small group that intended to “seize political and military control of Western European countries and implement a cultural conservative political agenda.”

He predicted a conflagration that would kill or injure more than a million people, adding, “The time for dialogue is over. We gave peace a chance. The time for armed resistance has come.”

The manifesto, entitled “2083: A European Declaration of Independence,” equates liberalism and multiculturalism with “cultural Marxism,” which it says is destroying European Christian civilization.

Signed Andrew Berwick, an Anglicized version of his name, it also describes a secret meeting in London in April 2002 to reconstitute the Knights Templar, a Crusader military order. It says the meeting was attended by nine representatives of eight European countries, evidently including Breivik, with an additional three members unable to attend, including a “European-American.”

Norwegian police were reportedly checking if there was another gunman on the island, and more explosives concealed in central Oslo where the car bomb was detonated. It was reported that Breivik ordered six tonnes of chemical fertiliser suitable for bomb making back in May. More evidence of his views was traced from his postings on right-wing and neo-Nazi websites.

Breivik had talked admiringly online about conversations he had had with unnamed English Defence League members and the organisation Stop the Islamification ofEurope(SIOE)

"I have on some occasions had discussions with SIOE and EDL and recommended them to use certain strategies," he wrote two years ago. "The tactics of the EDL are now to 'lure' an overreaction from the Jihad Youth/Extreme-Marxists, something they have succeeded in doing several times already."