INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR—PAPER NO. 732
B.RAMAN
According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, a large bomb blast has hit near government headquarters in the Norwegian capital Oslo, killing at least one person. The offices of Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg were damaged extensively, but he was described by a government spokeswoman as safe.
2.Police said a number of people were injured in the city centre explosion. Television footage from the scene showed rubble and glass from shattered windows in the streets - smoke was rising from some buildings. The wreckage of at least one car was on one street.
3.All roads into the city centre have been closed, said national broadcaster NRK, and security officials evacuated people from the area, fearing another blast. "Police can confirm there were deaths and injuries following the explosion in the government quarter this afternoon," the police said in a statement.
4.Oistein Mjarum, head of communications for the Norwegian Red Cross, said fires were burning in the 17-storey building housing the Prime Minister’s office. An NRK journalist, Ingunn Andersen, said the headquarters of tabloid newspaper VG had also been damaged.
5.A message of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's then No. 2, who has taken over as the head of Al Qaeda after OBL’s death on May 2,2011, in a US Commando attack at Abbottabad in Pakistan, broadcast by Al Jazeera on May 21, 2003, had called for reprisal attacks against the US and some of its allies for occupying Iraq.
6. The message, inter alia, said: "O Muslims, take matters firmly against the embassies of America, England, Australia, and Norway and their interests, companies, and employees. Burn the ground under their feet, as they should not enjoy your protection, safety, or security. Expel those criminals out of your countries. Do not allow the Americans, the British, the Australians, the Norwegians, and the other crusaders who killed your brothers in Iraq to live in your countries. Wreak havoc on them."
7. While the calls for attacks on the US, the UK and Australia were not a surprise, the call for reprisals against Norway was, since Norway was not one of the allies of the US in Iraq. It was not clear why Zawahiri included Norway in the list.
8.The Norwegian police announced on July 8,2010, the arrest of three men suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda on charges of preparing terrorist attacks. One of them was a Norwegian citizen of Uighur origin. The other two were permanent residents in Norway of Uzbek and Iraqi-Kurdish origin. Two of them (the Uzbek and the Uighur) were reported to have been arrested in Norway and the third (Iraqi-Kurd with a permanent residence permit of Norway) in Germany. The Norwegian police had been keeping them under surveillance for investigation for about a year. The arrests appeared to have been made even though the investigation had not yet been completed because of the leakage of the news about the investigation against them to the media. They apparently decided to arrest them before the media came out with the news.
9. Media reports indicated that the arrested persons were suspected of involvement in plots for terrorist strikes in Norway and of having links with some terrorist suspects under investigation in the US and the UK. It was not clear whether the arrested belonged to Al Qaeda or its ally the Islamic Jihad Union , which has many Uzbek and Uighur members.
10.It is not clear whether the targeting of Norway has anything to do with its role in Afghanistan as a member of the NATO forces fighting against the Taliban.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter : @SORBONNE75)
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7 comments:
shit shit shit! i knew it thats why me and carlos were pleading to digvijay singh to convince rahul to crush these lunatic goons RSS people. they r behind this attack. personally me and digvijay singh had unearthed many bomb factories, but rahul didnt as usual act on time. had he shown spine it could ve been avoided. if rahul had shown guts in fight against RSS like his great grand father nehru, things ld ve been different today.
Mr Raman now that It's proved that it was a christian hard-liner's Rambo act please make necessary changes to the post.
well said mr. saraswat. ha ha ha. oops!!!
Is anyone following the Vastanvi episode?
Vastanvi, who was the Vice-Chancellor of Darul Uloom has been removed from his post. He had allegedly said that even Muslims had benefitted from Narendra Modi's tenure as CM of Gujarat.
His comments about Modi are not important here (and personally, I don't care). It was a foregone conclusion that if a Muslim were to praise Modi, he is a gonner. What is important is the way he was shunted out. His competitor had roped in the Imam of Saudi Arabia (who is steeped in fundamentalist/anti-Hindu, anti-India Wahhabbi idealogy) and Pakistan's radical cleric Maulana Fazlur Rehman, both of whom paid visits to India to settle this dispute.
Any guesses who gave a red carpet welcome to these radical anti-hindu, anti-India foreigners to meddle in our internal affairs??
Congress MP Md. Azaruddin!!!
So, Pakistani and Saudi radicals have the power (and the commitment/will) to demolish the career of a moderate Indian Muslim who dared to praise N.Modi. And a Member of Indian National Government (UPA) welcomes these meddling foreigners with open arms!
Are Muslims blind to the way UPA and Congress uses them for their own selfish ends? How Pakistan and Saudi Arabia use them to further own hegemonic intentions?
paresh, it has nothing to do with hindu muslims, vastanvi uncle had done immense damage to congress prospects by praising modi, just before UP elections. madam ji is furious with him for that. after the blood bath congress rcvd in bihar, cons were relying on up, other important state for cons is andhra pradesh, which they ll lose in no time, cons r just for name sake there. so other most important state was up. rahul was expected to show his charisma in up, but so far he hasproved himself to be loser. sonia is really depending on up elections for her and her families survival. but vastanvi uncle by his single comment has destroyed rahuls prospects in up even before it started. mother is angry. vastanvi uncle needs to be punished.
@Ambi,
Agreed, but the important point is that these anti-nationals did not even think twice before inviting rabidly anti-India foreigners from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to settle an internal dispute of the Indian Muslim community!
Imagine Baba Ramdev or Shankaracharya going to Pakistan or Saudi Arabia to recommend a leader of the Hindu community there to be more hardline Hindu and more anti-Pakistan or anti-Saudi, and the Pakistani or Saudi government MP receiving them at the airport with a red carpet! Its unthinkable.
problem is not with congress or admn. admn is just a machinery, it works the way it is guided, n of course congress is rogue so no one was expecting anything from them. question is who elected cons. of course we. we need to be punished. we need to suffer.
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