Shooting at Norway nightclub leaves two dead, 14 wounded
>>OSLO: Two people were killed and at least 14 injured early yesterday in downtown Oslo when a gunman opened fire outside two nightclubs and a diner, police and Norway’s state broadcaster said.
A male suspect was apprehended five minutes after the shooting was reported, Oslo police tweeted. Tore Barstad, a police operations chief, said three of the wounded were seriously injured.
Mr Barstad said about 40 people had witnessed the shooting and that there appeared to have been only one gunman. He declined to say what type of weapon had been used.
City police later said they were investigating the incident as an act of terrorism.
Olav Ronneberg, a crime reporter with NRK, was in the area when the violence began. “I saw a man arrive at the scene with a bag, he took up a gun and started shooting,” he told the outlet.
One of the two nightclubs near the site of the attack, the London Pub, is a centre of gay nightlife in Oslo. The city’s annual Pride parade was scheduled for yesterday but was later cancelled along with all related events.
The timing and location of the attack raised concern that it may have been intended to target the LGBTQ community in Norway.
The London Pub, sitting a few blocks from parliament, opened in the 1970s. A picture of the bar in a listing on Oslo’s official tourism website shows a rainbow flag hoisted above its entrance.
Norway Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store described the shooting in a Facebook post as a “cruel and deeply shocking attack on innocent people”.
Shootings are exceedingly rare in Norway, a country of 5 million people.
Gun owners must be licensed and take safety classes, and a ban on semi-automatic weapons enacted by parliament took effect last year.