Norway mourns

It is hard to know what to write about the tragedy in Norway. A friend, who is an MP in Norway, says the entire government district in downtown Oslo looks like a war zone.

It appears to be the work of one madman, a “religious, gun-loving Norwegian obsessed with what he saw as the threat of multiculturalism and Muslim immigration to the cultural and patriotic values of his country”.

The death toll is now 92.

The killer, Anders Breivik, was captured alive. So we may get some glimpse of understanding into his particular insanity which led him down this road.

Horrifically 85 of the 92 dead come not from the bomb blast which would have been quick, but from being hunted down and shot. Their final minutes must have been terrifying.

Initially many thought the terrorist attack may have been an extreme Islamist group – partly because such a group actually put out a press release claiming responsibility. But it is a reminder that killing innocent people because you don’t like Islam is just as evil and demented as killing innocent people in the name of Islam.