After mosque attack in Norway, body found at home

OSLO, Norway — A worshipper thwarted an attack on a mosque Saturday by a young man wearing a helmet and body armor, according to Norwegian authorities and a witness. Hours later, police said they found a dead woman at a home linked to the assailant and they believe it was a relative.

Police described the suspect as a young white man who appeared to have acted alone. He was arrested and charged with attempted murder in connection with the mosque attack near the capital of Oslo.

When police made their way into a home where the suspect once lived, they found the body of a young woman.

“We will investigate the case as a murder,” said Rune Skjold, a police spokesman.

During the mosque attack, the suspect was overpowered by a 75-year-old member of the congregation who sustained slight injuries, said Irfan Mushtaq, a former director of the al-noor Islamic Centre mosque and a board member who witnessed it.

“The man carried two shotgun-like weapons and a pistol,” and was wearing body armor, a helmet and black clothes, Mushtaq told Norwegian televisiontv2. “He broke through a glass door and fired shots.”

Three people were in the mosque at the time, at about 4 p.m. local time. But if he had arrived earlier during prayers, the attacker could have hurt many more people, he said.

Police said they were aware of online posts linked to the suspect, whose name has not been released. About two hours before the attack, a post that raised questions of whether it could have been written by the suspect appeared on 8chan, the message board that hosted the antiimmigrant manifesto of the man accused of the El Paso, Texas, shooting and the hateful messages of other attackers.

Skjold said authorities had no evidence that the suspect belonged any kind of network of extremists. He told public broadcaster NRK that the suspect had been known to police, without elaborating.