Search begins for unexploded bombs after Norway blasts

Norwegian bomb disposal teams were searching for unexploded devices today on the island where an attacker opened fire, killing around 10 people attending a youth camp.

Norwegian bomb disposal teams were searching for unexploded devices today on the island where an attacker opened fire, killing around 10 people attending a youth camp.

A police source said there was at least one device at the camp where the 32-year-old gunman launched the deadly attack yesterday.

The source says a bomb disposal team with support from military experts was working on disarming the device.

The gunman, named in reports as Norwegian man Anders Behring Breivik, is also suspected of carrying out yesterday's Oslo bombing, but a police official said the attacks did not appear to be linked to Islamist terrorism.

The official said the attacks probably had more in common with the 1995 bombing that targeted a US government building in Oklahoma City than the September 11 2001 attacks.

He said the suspect appeared to have acted alone, and "it seems like that this is not linked to any international terrorist organisations at all".

The carnage began in Oslo when a bomb ripped open buildings in the heart of Norway's government.

Then a man dressed as a police officer gunned down youths at a summer camp. At least 16 people were killed in the nation's worst violence since the Second World War, but the death toll was expected to rise.

Hundreds of youths fled in terror at the camp on Utoya island organised by the youth wing of the ruling Labour Party, where prime minister Jens Stoltenberg had been due to speak today. Some even tried swimming to safety as the gunman opened fire.

A 15-year-old camper named Elise said she heard gunshots, but then saw a police officer and thought she was safe. Then he started shooting people right before her eyes.

"I saw many dead people," said Elise, whose father, Vidar Myhre, did not want her to disclose her last name. "He first shot people on the island. Afterwards he started shooting people in the water."

Elise said she hid behind the same rock that the killer was standing on. "I could hear his breathing from the top of the rock," she said.

Emilie Bersaas, identified by Sky News television as one of the youths on the island, said she ran inside a school building and hid under a bed when the shooting started.

"At one point the shooting was very, very close (to) the building, I think actually it actually hit the building one time, and the people in the next room screamed very loud," she said.

"I laid under the bed for two hours and then the police smashed a window and came in. It seems kind of unreal, especially in Norway. This is not something that could happen here."

The shooting occurred after the bombing in Oslo, Norway's capital and the city where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded. The blast left a square covered in twisted metal, shattered glass and documents expelled from surrounding buildings in a dust-fogged scene that reminded one visitor from New York of September 11.

Ian Dutton, who was in a nearby hotel, said people "just covered in rubble" were walking through "a fog of debris".

"It wasn't any sort of a panic," he said. "It was really just people in disbelief and shock, especially in a such as safe and open country as Norway. You don't even think something like that is possible."

Rescuers were searching the blast wreckage throughout the night for more victims.

Acting national police chief Sveinung Sponheim said the suspect, arrested during the shooting rampage, had been observed in Oslo before the explosion there.

Police did not immediately say how much time elapsed between the bombing and the attack at Utoya, about 20 miles north west, but reports of the shooting began appearing on Twitter about two and a half hours after the bombing.

Mr Sponheim said the gunman "wore a sweater with a police sign on it. I can confirm that he wasn't a police employee and never has been".

Aerial images broadcast by Norway's TV2 showed members of a Swat team dressed in black arriving at the island in boats and running up the dock. Behind them, people who stripped down to their underwear swam away from the island toward shore, some using flotation devices.

In Oslo, most of the windows in the 20-floor high-rise where Mr Stoltenberg and his administration work were shattered. Other buildings damaged house government offices and the headquarters of some of Norway's leading newspapers.

Oslo University Hospital said 12 people were admitted for treatment following the Utoya shooting and 11 people were taken there from the explosion in Oslo. The hospital asked people to donate blood.

Mr Stoltenberg, who was home when the blast occurred and was not harmed, condemned the "cowardly attack on young innocent civilians".

"I have message to those who attacked us," he said. "It's a message from all of Norway: You will not destroy our democracy and our commitment to a better world."

The attacks formed the deadliest day of terror in Western Europe since the 2005 London bombings, which killed 52 people.

Police said the Oslo explosion occurred at 3.30pm (2.30pm BST) and was caused by "one or more" bombs.

The United States, European Union, Nato and the UK quickly condemned the bombing, which Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague called "horrific" and Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen deemed a "heinous act".

"It's a reminder that the entire international community has a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring," said President Barack Obama, who offered US assistance with the investigation.

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