Huge explosion in Oslo

[kenoma]

.... I presumed I was being clear, perhaps not...

Perfectly clear, thanks

the rise of the populist right represents an actual or potential road-block or reservoir of opposition to the political & economic medicine implied by the euro crisis, particularly if it spreads to Germany which is the key risk

No, they want the same medicine, but with a MADE IN ENGERLAND sticker attached.

its members are highly motivated & can get people on the streets

Really? They strike me as a bunch of fatarsed pissheads.

they have developed a pan-European identity which serves as an antithesis to that of the official EU Projekt.

Not an antithesis, just a buzzcut variation.

[vanlose kid]

survivor at 0010: ... like many other people i thought it might be some kind of joke...



two survivors at 0300: ... we all thought it was a joke...

*

[Harvey]

Guardian Live feed 22/07/2011

5.16pm: Neil Perry in Oslo just sent me this worrying development. I'll try to get more details:

A man disguised as a police officer began shooting where youth were attending a Labour party conference at Utoya, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has just confirmed. He said there is a 'critical and serious situation' but he is safe. He was speaking on the phone to Norwegian TV station TV2.

17:27: The local police district in Buskerud learn about the shooting, and three minutes later the police in Oslo are informed.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ay_attacks

[justdrew]

the wiki timeline is as yet poorly sourced. Yet it does appear Neil Perry had very early word.

5.16pm: Neil Perry in Oslo just sent me this worrying development. I'll try to get more details:

A man disguised as a police officer began shooting where youth were attending a Labour party conference at Utoya, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has just confirmed.

He said there is a 'critical and serious situation' but he is safe.

He was speaking on the phone to Norwegian TV station TV2.

UPDATE: This post was amended as Stoltenberg was not present at the conference as previously stated. He had been due to attend it but did not go.

5.31pm: Neil Perry has sent me more details of the shooting on the Labour party youth camp, which suggests the possibility of co-ordinated attacks. It is a Google translation from Dagbladet, tidied up a bit, so it is not perfect.

yewitnesses told the AP that a man dressed as a police officer has fired several shots at Utøya in Buskerud. AP spoke with one of those who were on Utoya where there is an AUF event with over 700 people.

"Suddenly, we heard lots of shooting. People had to run and hide. We have been told to get off the island."

"We now have reports of a serious situation there - a critical situation on Utøya," Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told TV 2

The police are now on site and sealed off the area. Bjorn Jarle Røberg-Larsen of Labor, is not in Utoya, but has had telephone contact with young people who are on the island.

"They say that at least one person wearing a police-like uniform was firing shots with a handgun," he said.

He says that the young people he talked to were hiding and dared not speak on the phone anymore for fear of being discovered by the perpetrator.

"Young people have to swim in panic, and it is far to the mainland from Utoya. Others are hiding. Those I spoke with did not want to talk more. They were terrified," he said to VG Nett.

5.40pm: Police have confirmed the shooting incident, reports Reuters.

The news agency also quotes senior police officer, Thor Langli, saying the explosion that hit government buildings "may have been a car bomb".

5.47pm: Anti-terrorism police are being sent to Utoya where the Labour party youth camp has come under fire, the BBC is reporting. NRK says five people have been injured.

Andrew Boyle, a journalist in Norway, has sent me the following:

There are 700 people on the island camp. At 5.20 pm ambulance personel were told not to proceed out to the island because there was still shooting there. One Labour youth member tweeted: "We are sitting down by the beach. A man is shotting clothed in a police uniform. Help us! When are the police coming to help us!"

Police stormtroopers are about to land on Utoya island from helicopters. Shooting still going on. Eyewitness describes shooting from his position on the mainland: "There is a little war going on out there"

[vanlose kid]

Guardian Live feed 22/07/2011

5.16pm: Neil Perry in Oslo just sent me this worrying development. I'll try to get more details:

A man disguised as a police officer began shooting where youth were attending a Labour party conference at Utoya, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has just confirmed. He said there is a 'critical and serious situation' but he is safe. He was speaking on the phone to Norwegian TV station TV2.

17:27: The local police district in Buskerud learn about the shooting, and three minutes later the police in Oslo are informed.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ay_attacks

now you got 69 minutes. closer to [stickdog's] 78 (1 hour and 18 minutes). good spot.

edit: but only if the report came in the moment Breivik landed. before he started shooting. or you show he landed earlier still.

*

[DrVolin]

While there may very well have been more than one shooter, 'shooting from all directions' is not in itself evidence of such. Echo makes it very difficult to determine where shots are coming from in a signficiant fusillade.

Overcounting is a common problem in these situations. Typically, several teams will be working at the same time and have overlapping sectors, either by design or by accident. The initial overestimate of casualties is not surprising.

I haven't looked at the timeline very closely yet. But at first glance, without getting into apology, I don't find it surprising.

[stickdog99]

But if you were a cop in charge of other cops you might not.

If you were a cops boss, or a cop higher up the chain of command you might not think that. You might be thinking that there has been a bombing here, then a mass shooting all the way over there. Whats gonna happen when we get there to stop the mad shooting? A nuke in Bergen. Someone kills the royal family?

Its a different level of responsibility to being a cop on the ground at the site of the shooting. Especially when you don't know what is gonna happen next.


IN Australia, and AFAIK this applies to every emergency service in the Western World, if you are in charge then you are responsible for the safety of the people you're in charge of first. And for getting them to do the job correctly. Everything else comes second.

Despite what the movies say no one is expected to send their people into harms way with no specific info on whats going on. You have a boat full of armed men - you send across open water and one or two armed perps then shoot them all in the boat or shoot it with an rpg, which they may well have given there has just been a bombing and what appears to be an organised targeted mass killing. Then you have to dedicate resources to rescuing them and treating them as well as everything else.

Its far easier for a civilian in a boat to take independent autonomous and successful action off their own initiative than it is for an organised hierarchy to do the same thing.

Also people are assuming that cops are some sort of saviours that'll come in and make everything all right.

Fuck if you called the cops where I live and they got here inside an hour I'd be (un?) pleasantly surprised.

People take advantage of the fact that cops are notoriously slow to get anywhere to get stuff done and get the fuck away.

Good post, Joe. I'm not saying it has to be a big conspiracy. I'm just saying that all the excuses are bullshit.

[justdrew]

the odd thing about the police arrival...

they had him within a few minutes of disembarking. he was on the shore, that's where they got him. he apparently still had plenty of ammo. so the cops didn't take shots or shoot him while they were crossing, he must have been in sight. he could have shot at them. Presumably, he saw them coming and they had weapons trained on him and so he just surrendered, since he probably thought to himself that he wanted to live, for the media spectacle. Probably they were able to give him some commands, and/or he knew by then there was a sniper on him as well.

I think the timeline on this is still a bit mixed up. clearly it seems the PM's news conference (which he didn't attend even though the bbc live feed initially said he was there) knew about the shootings before the local cop shop did. Or times are being misreported

[Laodicean]

18:09: The Contingency Platoon arrive, but are also forced to wait for a boat.[9] The boat that is finally provided is too small for the amount of personnel and equipment, and nearly sinks during the crossing.[12]

Beredskapstroppen

Equipment

Beredskapstroppen has two Rigid-hulled inflatable boats. The type has three engines with a total of 675 HP.
For air transport Beredskapstroppen uses military Bell 412 SP from the RNoAF.

Rigid-hulled inflatable boat

A rigid-hulled inflatable boat, (RHIB) or rigid-inflatable boat (RIB) is a light-weight but high-performance and high-capacity boat constructed with a solid, shaped hull and flexible tubes at the gunwale. The design is stable and seaworthy. The inflatable collar allows the vessel to maintain buoyancy even if a large quantity of water is shipped aboard due to bad sea conditions.

Performance

RIBs are designed with hydroplaning hulls. Due to their low weight, RIBs often outperform some types of similarly sized and powered boats, although a pure fibreglass speedboat with similar dimensions is typically faster, due to its lighter weight and more arrowlike-shape.
RIBs can also generally cope better with rougher seas, although this may be partially due to an increased level of confidence, in knowing that a RIB is hard to sink, and better absorption of heavy loads by the flexible tubes, which therefore make heavy seas less unpleasant.[5]
The maximum speed of the RIB depends on its gross weight, power, length and profile of hull, and sea conditions. A typical seaborne 6-metre (19 ft 8 in) RIB, with six passengers, 110 horsepower (82 kW) engines, in Beaufort force 2 is very likely to have a top speed of around 30 knots (56 km/h). High-Performance RIBs may operate with a speed between 40 and 70 knots (74 and 130 km/h), depending on the size and weight.

[stickdog99]

According to the current official timeline, it took 97 minutes for the killer to go from placing a bomb in Oslo to killing kids on the island and he took the ferry!

Nobody's suggesting he lit a fuse under the car.

The timeline is:

15:20: A witness observes what he describes as a suspicious-looking man leaving Regjeringskvartalet (the Government quarter), in downtown Oslo.[8]

15:22: A bomb placed in a Volkswagen Crafter goes off in Grubbegata, near the offices of the Prime Minister, and several other governmental buildings.[9]

Again WTF is up with all the apologists for the cops taking 78 minutes to get the damn island with little kids getting shot all the while?

from the same timeline:

17:27: The local police district in Buskerud learn about the shooting, and three minutes later the police in Oslo are informed.[10]

17:38: Northern Buskerud police district ask Oslo police district for assistance.[13] Beredskapstroppen (the Contingency Platoon) is dispatched from Oslo to Utøya.[10]

17:52: The first local police car arrives at Tyrifjorden, but the officers have to wait for a suitable craft before they can cross over to Utøya.[12]

18:00

18:09: The Contingency Platoon arrive, but are also forced to wait for a boat.[9] The boat that is finally provided is too small for the amount of personnel and equipment, and nearly sinks during the crossing.[12]

18:25: The Contingency Platoon arrive on Utøya and go ashore.[11]

that's 58 minutes.

*

So you believe it took 20 minutes for the first kid to call 911 or 20 minutes for 911 to call the cops?

[Joe Hillshoist]

I've been leafing thru the 2083 manifesto and along with references eulogising John Howard and his Deputy Peter Costello (who some people think will come out of retire ment to challenge Tony Abbott for the leadership of the opposition. The Abbott and Costello of Auistralian politics, and check out their bizarre love triangle at uni,) and George Pell - Catholic Cardinal and member/leader of the Committee for Preservation and protection of dogma or whatever the Inquisition calls itself these days, there are a few references to Rupert Murdoch.

Criticising him and the concentration of media ownership!!! No shit. Murdoch's papers in Australia have basically made this guys worldview mainstream over the last 10 years, and here this guy is saying Murdoch champions multiculturalism and political correctness.

What the fuck is that?

A week after Murdochs entire News Corp top brass got busted for corrupting police and running a major intel gathering ring in the UK.

[vanlose kid]

According to the current official timeline, it took 97 minutes for the killer to go from placing a bomb in Oslo to killing kids on the island and he took the ferry!

Nobody's suggesting he lit a fuse under the car.

The timeline is:

15:20: A witness observes what he describes as a suspicious-looking man leaving Regjeringskvartalet (the Government quarter), in downtown Oslo.[8]

15:22: A bomb placed in a Volkswagen Crafter goes off in Grubbegata, near the offices of the Prime Minister, and several other governmental buildings.[9]

Again WTF is up with all the apologists for the cops taking 78 minutes to get the damn island with little kids getting shot all the while?

from the same timeline:

17:27: The local police district in Buskerud learn about the shooting, and three minutes later the police in Oslo are informed.[10]

17:38: Northern Buskerud police district ask Oslo police district for assistance.[13] Beredskapstroppen (the Contingency Platoon) is dispatched from Oslo to Utøya.[10]

17:52: The first local police car arrives at Tyrifjorden, but the officers have to wait for a suitable craft before they can cross over to Utøya.[12]

18:00

18:09: The Contingency Platoon arrive, but are also forced to wait for a boat.[9] The boat that is finally provided is too small for the amount of personnel and equipment, and nearly sinks during the crossing.[12]

18:25: The Contingency Platoon arrive on Utøya and go ashore.[11]

that's 58 minutes.

*

So you believe it took 20 minutes for the first kid to call 911 or 20 minutes for 911 to call the cops?

nope. nice try though.

let me spell it out, going by the same timeline you do and citing your 78 minutes the first phone call or report would have been made the very moment Breivik stepped off of the ferry. assuming along with you that this is what happened a police response within 1 hour and 18 minutes under the circumstances of the day (i see you've actually read Joe's post) isn't that bad. get it? that's not an apology. that's just how it is.

edit: and no, if i were running things i would definitely not have landed a helicopter on that island. that would be stupidly hollywood.

further edit: and no, even if i had flown delta there i wouldn't have landed them on it.

*

[Laodicean]

Not buying the special forces boat sinking story...not for such a highly trained counter-terrorism force and the available boats at their disposal...and train on.

[barracuda]

Here is video of the police at the dock after landing on the island. If nothing else, you can at least see the boats used by the cops to get over to Utøya.

[Laodicean]

Just so it's clear:

Beredskapstroppen (BT) (English Contingency Platoon), call sign Delta, is a specialized police unit situated in Oslo, Norway. It is the main public force counter-terrorism unit in Norway,trained to perform dangerous operations such as high-risk arrests and hostage situations.

Members of the unit have been deployed in the multinational police unit, Special Team Six many times. Team Six has most notably served in Kosovo. One of the unit's most important task was to arrest war criminals. According to one of the Delta operators, during a rescue mission, grenades and bullets flew over their heads while Team Six rescued 50-60 persons from furious Albanians.[1] This incident was a rescue of UN personnel trapped in a building. Team Six was commanded by a Norwegian operator from Beredskapstroppen during this mission and during the period January-July 2004. Beredskapstroppen has had personnel deployed in Team Six ever since its foundation.[2]