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Norway nightclub shooting being investigated as act of terrorism: Police


By AFP
Published : 25 Jun 2022 08:39 PM

Norwegian police said on Saturday (June 25) that they were treating deadly shootings that killed two people near bars in central Oslo overnight as a “terrorist attack”.

Police said two people had died and 21 were wounded, including 10 seriously in the attacks, and that two weapons had been seized.

Police said a suspect had been arrested following the shootings, which occurred at around 1am (7am Singapore time) in three locations, including a gay bar, close together in the centre of the Norwegian capital.

“The police are investigating the events as a terrorist act,” said a police statement.

Police said the suspect, who is a Norwegian of Iranian descent, has been apprehended.

The man was known to domestic intelligence services and had brushes with the law for minor infractions like knife and drug possession, police told a press conference, without naming the suspect.

"Now everything indicates that there was only one person who committed this act," police official Tore Barstad said. The Pride march that was due to take place on Saturday has been called off. "All events linked to Oslo Pride have been cancelled" following "clear" recommendations by police, the organisers wrote on Facebook.

The crime scene extended from the London Pub via a neighbouring club and onwards to a nearby street, where the suspect was apprehended a few minutes after the shooting began, Mr Barstad told the newspaper Aftenposten.

The London Pub is a popular gay bar and nightclub in the centre of Oslo.

"I saw a man arrive with a bag. He picked up a gun and started to shoot," journalist Olav Roenneberg of public broadcaster NRK reported.

Photographs published by newspaper VG, broadcaster NRK and others showed a large gathering of emergency responders outside the London Pub, including police and ambulance workers.

Helicopters hovered above central Oslo while ambulance and police car sirens were heard across the city. Oslo's university hospital said it had gone on red alert following the shooting.

Shootings are exceedingly rare in Norway, a country of five million people whose capital lies beside a picturesque fjord.