Gunman charged over Norway carnage

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Norwegian police have charged a man over twin attacks which left at least 92 people dead.

At least 85 people died when the alleged gunman, armed with an automatic rifle and dressed as a policeman, went on a shooting rampage at a youth camp.

That attack came just hours after a huge bomb ripped through the heart of Oslo, killing at least seven people after it was detonated outside the government building housing the prime minister's office.

Norway's prime minister has described the situation as a "nightmare", speaking of "fear, death and blood" experienced by young people at the summer camp where the worst of the carnage took place.

Police earlier confirmed they were questioning a 32-year-old Norwegian man, who local media named as Anders Behring Breivik.

While police are yet to officially confirm the gunman's identity, a police official said information gleaned from the internet suggests the gunman was a Christian fundamentalist.

Police Commissioner Sveinung Sponheim confirmed the suspect had posted anti-Muslim rhetoric online, and local media said Breivik had links to right-wing extremists and possessed two weapons registered in his name.

Breivik's Facebook page appeared to have been blocked by late Friday evening (local time). Earlier, it had listed interests including bodybuilding, conservative politics and freemasonry.

Some Norwegian media reported that his Facebook page describe him as "conservative", "Christian", and interested in hunting and computer games such as World of Warcraft and Modern Warfare 2.

In his only Twitter post, published on July 18, Breivik wrote: "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100 000 who have only interests."

There were no immediate reports of other suspects, but Commisioner Sponheim said authorities were working on the hypothesis that several people may have been involved.

Police who arrested the gunman later found undetonated explosives on the island, which is a pine-clad strip of land about 500 metres long, north-west of Oslo.

Most of the victims on Utoya were believed to be teenagers who were attending the summer camp held by the governing Labour Party.

The death toll from both attacks sits at 91, but police say they are searching the water around Utoya island for more bodies. Police say the attacks have taken on "catastrophic dimensions".

How did he do it?

It is thought that the attacker detonated the bomb in Oslo before catching a ferry to nearby Utoya wearing a police uniform.

According to witness testimony, he claimed to be investigating the bomb attack but began opening fire with an automatic weapon after beckoning youngsters towards him.

Witnesses described scenes of panic and horror among the 560 people attending the youth camp.

Some people who tried to swim to safety were shot in the water while one witness described the gunman kicking people in the head as they lay on the ground to see if they were dead or alive.

Police could not confirm whether the gunman tried to kill himself after the massacre.

Later on Friday about 10 police officers were outside the address registered to Breivik in a four-storey red brick building in west Oslo.

The Norwegian daily Verdens Gang quoted a friend as saying Breivik became a right-wing extremist in his late 20s.

The newspaper said he expressed strong nationalistic views in online debates and had been a strong opponent of the idea that people of different cultural backgrounds could live alongside each other.

'Fear, blood and death'

The nation is in shock by the sheer scale and savagery of the attack, with the awful reality of so many dead just starting to sink in.

The attacks are western Europe's deadliest since the 2004 Madrid bombings.

Desperate families gathered in a town near Utoya waiting for news of their loved ones.

Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg on Saturday declared the twin shooting and bomb attacks as "a national tragedy."

"Never since the Second World War has our country been hit by a crime on this scale," Mr Stoltenberg told a press conference.

"It is all the worse because Utoya is a place I have visited every summer since 1974. I have known joy, commitment and safety there.

"Now the place has been through brutal violence and a paradise for youth has been turned into hell in a few hours."

At his side, justice minister Knut Storberget said that "up to now, there is no reason to raise the threat level" of terror attacks in Norway.

Map: Oslo and Utoya island, Norway

Scene of destruction

While most of the deaths occurred in Utoya, authorities said they believed the toll in Oslo would have been higher if the attacks had not been timed to coincide with a public holiday.

The huge explosion on Friday afternoon left blast victims lying bleeding on pavements sprinkled with shattered glass from disfigured buildings.

In the blink of an eye the city of half a million, where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded every year, became a picture of urban desolation with building skeletons left standing after an explosion heard kilometres away.

Witnesses described the ground shaking like an earthquake as the bomb blast rang out through the city like heavy thunder.

"I thought it was thunder at first but it was glass, glass everywhere and the building on fire," said one witness, after the blast outside Mr Stoltenberg's office.

"You could see it, feel it inside your body and I thought that my lungs hurt and my heart hurt," another said.

The windows of the prime minister's office were blown clear out, with the imposing government tower badly damaged on all sides. Surrounding buildings were also mangled, with the nearby oil ministry catching fire.

Oslo's police chief, Anstein Gjengedal, says the death toll could still rise.

"We are not sure that this is the final result for Oslo when it comes to deaths," he said.

ABC/wires

First posted