Sunday, July 24, 2011

Kiwi still missing on Norwegian island

The man accused of the killing spree in Norway was deeply influenced by a small group of American bloggers and writers who have warned for years about the threat from Islam, lacing his 1,500-page manifesto with quotations from them, as well as copying multiple passages from the tract of the Unabomber.

In the document he posted online, Anders Behring Breivik, who is accused of bombing government buildings and killing scores of young people at a Labor Party camp, showed that he had closely followed the acrimonious American debate over Islam.

His manifesto, which denounced Norwegian politicians as failing to defend the country from Islamic influence, quoted Robert Spencer, who operates the Jihad Watch Web site, 64 times, and cited other Western writers who shared his view that Muslim immigrants pose a grave danger to Western culture.

More broadly, the mass killings in Norway, with their echo of the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City by an antigovernment militant, have focused new attention around the world on the subculture of anti-Muslim bloggers and right-wing activists and renewed a debate over the focus of counterterrorism efforts.

A dual New Zealand/Norwegian national was thought to be on the island at the time of the attack.

It has been 48 hours since Anders Behring Breivik opened fire, killing 86 of the 700 youth staying at the camp.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said this morning that there had been no update on the Kiwi's whereabouts since Saturday night.

A MFAT spokesperson said she didn't have any information on how many people were still missing on the island and whether any more bodies had been found.

The New Zealand embassy in The Hague, which was accredited to Norway, was in direct contact with the New Zealander's next of kin in Norway.

The Norwegian authorities were still working to locate all those thought to be on the island at the time of the attack.

MFAT would not disclose the person's sex or age. The girl's relatives in New Zealand had been informed she was believed to be on the island.

No comments:

Post a Comment