Monday, August 1, 2011

Soldier shouts alleged Fort Hood killer name in court (Reuters)

WACO, Texas (Reuters) – Army soldier Naser Jason Abdo shouted the name of a military psychiatrist accused of a 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, during his first appearance in court on Friday on a charge related to an alleged terror plot.

Abdo, 21, was formally charged with illegal possession of a firearm two days after his arrest in a Killeen, Texas, motel room in possession of suspected bomb-making materials.

"Abeer Qassim al-Janabi Iraq 2006; Nidal Hasan, Fort Hood, 2009," Abdo shouted at the media as he was led out of the Waco courtroom.

The name Al-Janabi refers to a 14-year-old girl who was raped and murdered by American soldiers in Iraq in 2006. Several soldiers have been charged and sentenced, including a soldier from Midland, Texas.

Nidal Hasan is a military psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people and wounding 32 at a medical facility on Fort Hood in 2009. Hasan, who is in a wheelchair after being shot by police during the attack, faces court martial next year.

Abdo's outburst was the first public indication of his possible intentions when he was arrested.

After his arrest on Wednesday, he told the FBI that his plan was to attack Fort Hood and blow up a local restaurant, according to an FBI affidavit filed with the charges on Friday.

Authorities have said they expect more federal charges to follow. Another hearing was set for August 4.

Abdo is a native of the Dallas area, but authorities at first said they did not know of any connection to Killeen or why he picked Fort Hood.

Abdo has been missing from his Fort Campbell, Kentucky, post since July 4 and was being held in connection with an unrelated pornography warrant.

Abdo was granted conscientious objector status by the U.S. military earlier this year because his Muslim beliefs clashed with military action overseas. But that was suspended following the pornography charge.

He was arrested Wednesday afternoon after a call from Greg Ebert, an employee at a Killeen gun shop, who told Reuters he was concerned when Abdo bought ammunition and smokeless powder.

It was the same gun shop where Hasan bought his weapons two years ago.

An affidavit by FBI agent James Runkel said Abdo told police he intended to conduct an attack against Killeen and Fort Hood.

He also indicated in response to questions that there were explosives in his backpack and in his hotel room, Runkel said.

His backpack was searched and the officers found a handgun, ammunition, items that can be used to construct a "destructive device," and an article entitled, "Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom," Runkel said.

He said FBI personnel then interviewed Abdo on July 27 and he, "admitted that he planned to assemble two bombs in the hotel room using gun powder and shrapnel packed into pressure cookers to detonate inside an unspecified restaurant frequented by solders from Fort Hood."

In the brief court hearing, U.S. Magistrate Jeffrey C. Manske declared Abdo held without bond, citing a charge of absent without leave from the Army and previous charge relating to child pornography.

Abdo was stoic throughout the five-minute proceeding and was surrounded by eight U.S. Marshalls. Two marshals had to prompt him to stand when Judge Manske entered the courtroom.

Abdo answered respectfully and affirmatively when asked whether he understood the charge. The judge asked him whether he had any conditions that would impair his ability to understand the proceedings, and Abdo said "No."

(Writing by Karen Brooks; Editing by Greg McCune)


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Bush to be in NYC to mark 10th anniversary of 9/11 (AP)

NEW YORK – The ceremony at the World Trade Center site marking the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks will be a solemn but stately event that will include former President George W. Bush and a chance for victims' families to view the names of loved ones etched into the memorial, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

President Barack Obama and Bloomberg will be joined by the leaders in charge during the 2001 attacks, including Bush, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former New York Gov. George Pataki. Current New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will also be there, he said.

Speaking on his weekly radio show Friday on WOR-AM, Bloomberg said the lawmakers will read short poems or quotes. No speeches will be given.

"This cannot be political," he said. "So that's why there's a poem or a quote or something that each of the readers will read. No speeches whatsoever. That's not an appropriate thing."

The mayor also revealed a few more details for the ceremony on Sunday, Sept. 11. It will be held on the highway to the west of the site, and only relatives will be allowed inside the memorial to look for the names of their loved ones, etched into the railings at two huge waterfalls built in the footprint of the World Trade Center. The falls descend from street level down into a void.

The names of the nearly 3,000 victims — including those who died at the Pentagon and aboard United Flight 93 that went down in Shanksville, Pa., — will be read aloud for the first time.

The public will be allowed into the space, still a major construction site, the day after the ceremony but only with tickets. Bloomberg said limiting the number of people is a safety precaution as the work continues on 1 World Trade Center, the PATH station and museum.

He said there have been a couple hundred thousand reservations already, and a few days are already booked solid. He estimated that a million people annually will visit the site.

The museum is still under construction and is scheduled to open next year. Artifacts from the terrorist attacks are slowly being accumulated for the space, including a steel T-beam shaped like a cross that was discovered by a construction worker in the smoldering rubble. A national atheist group sued over the inclusion of the cross in the museum. It says all beliefs should be included, or none.

Bloomberg said on his radio show that the group had a right to sue, but the cross had a right to be there.

"This clearly influenced people," he said. "It gave them strength. In a museum you want to show things that impacted people's behavior back then, even if you don't think it was right. It's history. Museums are for history."

Bloomberg said other religious relics would be in the museum — a star of David cut from World Trade Center steel, a Bible found during the recovery effort and a Jewish prayer shawl.


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Businesses play critical role in thwarting terror (AP)

KILLEEN, Texas – Ultimately, it was the keen eye of a Texas gun shop clerk that helped authorities find an AWOL soldier who'd stashed bomb-making material in his nearby motel room for a planned attack on Fort Hood soldiers.

The tip that led Killeen police to Pfc. Naser Abdo on Wednesday prevented what could have been the second terrorist attack on the Army post, following a 2009 shooting rampage in which an Army psychiatrist is charged with killing 13 people. Earlier this year in Texas, a shipping company that told the FBI about a suspicious order for a chemical explosive foiled an alleged plot to blow up former President George W. Bush's Dallas home.

The enduring lesson for a post-9/11 world: America's work force plays a crucial role in preventing potential terror attacks.

"A vigilant public and informed local law enforcement make it much more complicated for people wishing to carry out attacks to do so," said John Cohen, principal deputy counterterrorism adviser at the Homeland Security Department.

Federal and local law enforcement agencies have established programs over the past decade that encourage the public to report suspicious activity, and tips from businesses have led to multiple high-profile arrests.

Abdo, 21, who went absent without leave from Fort Campbell, Ky., early this month, was arrested Wednesday at a motel outside Fort Hood and charged with possession of an unregistered destructive device. Police say he was perhaps only a day away from unleashing bombs in a restaurant frequented by soldiers and attacking the Army post.

Abdo's alleged plan was cut short when Guns Galore employee Greg Ebert became suspicious after the soldier acted oddly while purchasing smokeless gunpowder, shotgun ammunition and a semi-automatic pistol magazine. Ebert's call to police and the soldier's subsequent arrest was a proud moment for employees of the store — the same place Maj. Nidal Hasan bought a pistol used in the Fort Hood shooting spree two years ago.

Store clerk Dave Newby said Hasan's purchase, while legal, devastated store workers and put everyone on higher alert.

"I think we all changed," he said. "It was terrible. We thought about coulda, shoulda, woulda."

Ebert noted this week that although there was "nothing extraordinary" about Abdo, he saw just enough to make him suspicious.

The retired police officer said Abdo arrived at the Killeen gun shop in a taxi — unusual for the Central Texas town — and proceeded to buy 6 pounds of smokeless gunpowder, while asking what it was. Abdo didn't say much as he paid in cash, and he didn't bother to collect his change or a receipt before returning to the waiting taxi.

"Now, he hasn't done anything unlawful — it doesn't prevent me from being curious," said Ebert, who retired from the police force last year.

Federal authorities say actions like Ebert's can keep America safe.

"The willingness of an individual to contact law enforcement about an event or incident that may be indicative of a possible threat is vital to our mission," FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said. "It may turn out not to be a threat but at least we have the opportunity to check it out."

Other business tips have been credited with preventing disaster.

A clerk at a Circuit City store in New Jersey told police in 2006 that customers had asked him to make a DVD out of video footage of them firing assault weapons and screaming about jihad. The FBI later tracked six men, now known as the Fort Dix Six, who plotted to kill soldiers in a raid at the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey.

Earlier this year, two companies — Carolina Biological Supply Co. in North Carolina and Con-way Freight in Lubbock — contacted federal and local authorities about suspicions each had surrounding a purchase by Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, who has been charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and schedule for trial later this year.

Federal authorities said Aldawsari bought explosive materials online and planned to hide them inside dolls and baby carriages to blow up dams, nuclear plants and Bush's home. A former Texas Tech University chemical engineering student from Saudia Arabia, Aldawsari was arrested after the North Carolina company reported $435 in suspicious purchases to the FBI.

The freight company notified Lubbock police and the FBI with similar suspicions because it appeared the order wasn't intended for commercial use. Con-way Freight spokesman Gary Frantz said since Sept. 11, 2001, the company has worked with local, state and federal authorities to develop training programs employees participate in at least once a year.

"I think we can be a force multiplied, which is a term often used by law enforcement, where private industry serves as additional eyes and ears to help authorities to uncover these activities to protect the public," Frantz said.

Carolina Biological Supply spokesman Keith Barker said his company has procedures to closely monitor orders involving "chemicals of a high degree of hazard."

"We've taken it upon ourselves to be vigilant," Barker said.

Meanwhile, "Operation Tripwire" is an FBI effort that asks certain businesses and industries — such as airlines and cruise ships — to look for and report suspicious behavior. The Department of Homeland Security has a national "If You See Something, Say Something" public awareness campaign that works with businesses and groups, such as the National Basketball Association, to promote public vigilance.

Some local law enforcement agencies also have partnered with businesses. New York Police Department detectives have asked thousands of companies to be on the lookout as part of "Operation Nexus."

"In a sense we don't know what we deter," because people don't commit crimes and get arrested, said Paul Browne, spokesman for the nation's largest police department. "But by making these things harder, and by educating people who may become unwitting players in terrorist plots, we hope to have that deterrent impact."

The Los Angeles Police Department created "iWatch," which uses brochures, public service announcements and meetings with community groups to provide advice on how to detect and report suspicious behavior.

LAPD Cmdr. Blake Chow said the program is augmented by a web-based system that lets private businesses and security firms exchange information about suspicious activities. The intelligence gleaned with these systems, along with phone tips, has helped disrupt the financing of suspected overseas terrorist organizations, he said.

"The general public is the ones that go to the same place every day to work, they know their neighbors," Chow said. "We rely on them to tell us if they see something or an individual's activities that seem out of place."

___

Associated Press writers Betsy Blaney in Lubbock, Colleen Long in New York City, Eileen Sullivan in Washington and Thomas Watkins in Los Angeles contributed to this report.


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'Oslove,' Norway's powerful answer to terror (AFP)

OSLO (AFP) – They call it "Oslove," written with a heart-shaped second 'O,' and a week after the attacks that killed 77 people in Norway the symbol of a peace-loving nation's response is everywhere.

The word is carved into rocks marking a mainland jetty used by residents to sail across to Utoeya island, where Anders Behring Breivik gunned down 69 mostly young people about an hour away from the capital.

A car bomb blast targeting government offices in the city centre also claimed by Behring Breivik killed another eight.

In the night-time bars where Oslo's young are letting their hair down once more after going through an emotional wringer, Norwegians greet strangers with a kiss and the whispered mantra.

Outside the city cathedral it crops up time and again in the giant garden tribute to the dead that has sprung up there.

"It's my fourth visit, and each time it has got bigger," said Henrik, 56, of the sea of flowers, flags, candles and messages of condolence, 50 metres (yards) long and 20 wide.

"It feels good to be here, that's why I come. It's fantastic to see all this love," he adds.

Anxious to preserve this outpouring of emotion, the mayor of Oslo has said the pictures drawn by children and the other messages left at the site will be gathered up and housed at Norway's national archives.

The flowers, meanwhile, will be turned into compost, to give new life somewhere else.

"It didn't really hit me when I saw it on television," said Oganda Mawanda, a 28-year-old African immigrant, of the floral tribute. "But once you're here in front of it... It's just so terrible what happened."

A mother brings her two little children, aged six and three, to place roses at the scene.

"I tried to explain to them what happened, without going into the details," says Siri Merete Ek of the murderous rampage.

One card jutting out sums up the feelings of everyone who stops.

"For those who have left us, for those who have lost someone, for those who have survived, for those who grieve, for those in fear, for those who are sad -- thoughts of comfort filled with love," it reads.

Nearby, a boy of five-and-a-half places his offering -- depicting balloons floating off into the sky -- among the pile.

The scene is just a short hop from the court-house where Behring Breivik made his brief appearance before a judge on Monday, to be remanded in custody as investigators gather the evidence needed to pursue a unique trial next year.

That appearance marked the only time Oslo witnessed an angry public reaction -- a youth lashed out at the armoured car bringing in the suspect via an underground back-entrance.

Even as the judge gathered the parties in his closed chambers, 'Oslove' had taken root inside the building: a Dutch-Russian couple made their wedding vows on the first floor in a pre-arranged ceremony.


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Former officials: Al-Qaida still likely to use WMD (AP)

By KIMBERLY DOZIER, AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier, Ap Intelligence Writer – Thu Jul 28, 6:31 pm ET

ASPEN, Colo. – A chemical or biological attack by al-Qaida and its offshoots remains a threat, despite the killing of terror leader Osama bin Laden, top former U.S. counterterrorist officials said Thursday.

"We still have pockets of al-Qaida around the world who see this as a key way to fight us," especially the offshoot in Yemen, Mike Leiter, the just-retired director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told an audience at the Aspen Security Forum. "The potential threat from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is very real."

Leiter said the new breed of terrorists understands that killing a few Americans can cause as much fear as the massive plots bin Laden backed.

"The most likely ... are simple forms of chemical or biological weapons" rather than a nuclear attack, Leiter said, using the poison ricin as an example of something that's easily made.

"Is it going to kill many people? No. Is it going to scare people? Yes," he said.

"Bin Laden was really prioritizing the big attack," Leiter added. "Some of them may have fantasies about pulling off another 9/11," but his affiliates realize they can affect U.S. strategy and society with smaller scale attacks.

"Anwar al-Awlaki gets that," Leiter said, naming the U.S.-born radical cleric of the Yemeni branch. And so do other offshoots, like the Pakistani Taliban, which sent a bomber to try to blow up a car in the middle of Times Square a year ago, he said.

With bin Laden gone, Leiter and former CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin both predicted new leader Ayman al-Zawahiri launch similar smaller scale campaign.

"Zawahiri will probably favor smaller targets," McLaughlin told the audience. "Bin Laden did not."

Leiter and McLaughlin both said Zawahiri's core al-Qaida was weaker after bin Laden's killing.

"I think it is now possible ... to actually visualize, to imagine its collapse," McLaughlin said, speaking of the original core group. But he warned against underestimating Zawahiri or his followers.

"He's not as charismatic ... but he may be more disciplined, he said, adding that Zawahiri is a physician who has long been interested in using weapons of mass destruction to attack.

"What we will know is there has been no successful inbound attack since 9/11 that we can attribute directly to al-Qaida," added Charles Allen, who has held multiple top positions at the CIA over the years. "But we can see this metastasized network linked by Internet that is self-sustaining across the world."

Leiter said the trove of information, including inter-al-Qaida communications, taken from bin Laden's compound where he was killed by U.S. commandoes showed the group already was struggling.

He said the documents revealed bin Laden was not the CEO of a large multinational corporation, as analysts thought, but the "slightly out of touch coordinator of a broad dysfunctional family who, frankly, were operating on their own agendas more than his."

But he said al-Qaida and the other groups still have enough organization and staff to keep attacking.

Leiter warned that intelligence and military leaders had to figure out how to keep their staff members, who joined after Sept. 11 to track and fight terrorists in war zones, from getting bored and leaving, because while the U.S. may be drawing down its military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the anti-terror war is far from over.

"Smaller scale terrorist attacks are with us for at least the foreseeable future," Leiter said.

"This is going to happen," Allen added.


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Sunday, July 31, 2011

Army: AWOL soldier admits to Fort Hood attack plan (AP)

KILLEEN, Texas – An AWOL infantry soldier caught with weapons and a bomb inside a backpack admitted planning what would have been Fort Hood's second terrorist attack in less than two years, the Army said Thursday. He might have succeeded at carrying it out, police said, if a gun-store clerk hadn't alerted them to the man's suspicious activity.

"We would probably be here today, giving you a different briefing, had he not been stopped," Killeen Police Chief Dennis Baldwin said, calling the plan a "terror plot."

The 21-year-old suspect, Pfc. Naser Abdo, was arrested Wednesday at a motel about three miles from Fort Hood's main gate. He had spoken out against the 2009 Fort Hood shootings last year as he made a public plea to be granted conscientious objector status to avoid serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Like the soldier charged with killing 13 people in the shootings, Abdo is Muslim, but he said in an essay obtained by The Associated Press the attacks ran against his beliefs and were "an act of aggression by a man and not by Islam."

Abdo was approved as a conscientious objector this year, but that status was put on hold after he was charged with possessing child pornography. He went absent without leave from Fort Campbell, Ky., during the July 4 weekend.

On July 3, he tried to purchase a gun at a store near the Kentucky post, according to the company that owns the store. Abdo told an AP reporter a week later that he was concerned about his safety and had considered purchasing a gun for protection, but had not yet done so.

Police in Killeen said their break in the case came from Guns Galore LLC — the same gun store where Maj. Nidal Hasan bought a pistol used in the 2009 attack. Store clerk Greg Ebert said the man arrived by taxi Tuesday and bought 6 pounds of smokeless gunpowder, three boxes of shotgun ammunition and a magazine for a semi-automatic pistol.

Ebert said he called authorities because he and his co-workers "felt uncomfortable with his overall demeanor and the fact he didn't know what the hell he was buying."

According to an Army alert sent via email and obtained by The Associated Press, Killeen police learned from the taxi company that Abdo had been picked up from a local motel and had also visited an Army surplus store where he paid cash for a uniform bearing Fort Hood unit patches.

Agents found firearms and "items that could be identified as bomb-making components, including gunpowder," in Abdo's motel room, FBI spokesman Erik Vasys said.

The Army alert said Abdo "was in possession of a large quantity of ammunition, weapons and a bomb inside a backpack," and upon questioning admitted planning an attack on Fort Hood. Officials have not offered details about a possible motive.

Baldwin, the police chief, said Abdo "was taken down rather quickly without incident."

Vasys said the FBI would charge Abdo with possessing bomb-making components and he would be transferred from Killeen police into federal custody. Vasys said there was nothing to indicate Abdo was working with others.

An Oklahoma attorney who has represented Abdo said Thursday he hadn't heard from Abdo in weeks.

"I've been quite anxious to get in touch with him," said attorney James Branum.

The AP was among the media outlets to interview Abdo in the past year when reporting on his request for objector status. On Tuesday, July 12, Abdo contacted an AP reporter with whom he had spoken previously, said he had gone AWOL and considered purchasing a gun for personal protection. Abdo said he had not yet done so, because he knew he would have to give his name and other information to the gun dealer.

Abdo said he had received critical emails about his conscientious objector case and was worried about his safety as an increasing number of soldiers were returning to Fort Campbell from Afghanistan.

The AP described the contents of this conversation that Thursday to a civilian Army spokesman. The next day, when contacted by Army investigators, the AP said it did not know Abdo's location and provided the telephone number from which he made his original call.

An Article 32 military hearing last month had recommended that Abdo be court-martialed over military charges that 34 images of child pornography were found on a computer he used.

In addition, the military's criminal investigation division, along with the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force, investigated Abdo earlier after he was flagged for making unspecified anti-American comments while taking a language class, according to a U.S. official briefed on the investigation.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said neither the military nor the task force discovered anything at the time to indicate Abdo was planning an attack, the official said.

FBI, police and military officials have said little about whether or how they were tracking Abdo since he left Fort Campbell. Patrick J. Connor, special agent in charge with Army Criminal Investigation Command at Fort Hood, said efforts had been made to locate him after an arrest warrant was issued but he would not elaborate.

Abdo grew up in Garland, a Dallas suburb about 170 miles from Fort Hood. In his essay, which he sent to the AP last year as he made his conscientious-objector plea, he said his mother is Christian and his father is Muslim, and that he decided to follow Islam when he was 17.

"Little did I know that when I first became a Muslim that I was going to learn what Islam meant to me and what I was willing to sacrifice for it," he wrote.

He wrote that he joined the Army believing he could serve in the military and honor his religion, but he ended up having to endure insults and threats from fellow soldiers over his religion during basic and advanced training. He said life was better after he arrived at his first duty station, but that he studied Islam more closely as he neared deployment to learn "whether going to war was the right thing to do Islamically."

"I began to understand and believe that only God can give legitimacy to war and not humankind," he wrote. "That's when I realized my conscience would not allow me to deploy."

His application was filed in June 2010. The Army's Conscientious Objector Review board denied his request, but the deputy assistant secretary of the Army Review Boards Agency recommended he be separated from the Army as a conscientious objector. The discharge was delayed when he was charged with possession of child pornography on May 13.

Fort Campbell civilian spokesman Bob Jenkins said Abdo had been aware of the child pornography investigation since November.

Abdo lived for about five years with his mother and sister in a corner duplex in Garland, according to a neighbor, Yawonna Wilson. Wilson said the family moved out about a year ago.

Shakira Doss, a neighbor who went to the same Dallas-area high school as Abdo and was good friends with his sister, said she wasn't surprised by news of the alleged plot because the suspect seemed "weird." When she visited Abdo's duplex, Doss said he would spend most of the time in his room.

Abdo's sister "had all the friends," said Doss, a 17-year-old high school senior. "Her brother just didn't fit in."

Abdo attempted to purchase a gun July 3 from Quantico Tactical, a store near Fort Campbell in Oak Grove, Ky., said David Hensley, president of the seven-store chain.

Hensley said Abdo went into the store twice that day. The first time, after asking questions, he left. The second time, he attempted to buy a handgun, Hensley said.

"He exhibited behavior that alerted our staff and our staff refused to, based upon that behavior, sell him a firearm," he said.

Hensley said normally when someone buys a weapon, federal paperwork is filled out and there is an instant background check by the FBI, but the attempted purchase didn't get to that stage.

___

Associated Press writers Diana Heidgerd in Dallas; Danny Robbins in Garland; Pauline Jelinek, Eileen Sullivan and Robert Burns in Washington; Kristin M. Hall in Nashville, Tenn.; and Bruce Schreiner and Janet Cappiello in Louisville, Ky., contributed to this report.


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Norway terror attack exposes deeper anger over immigration (The Christian Science Monitor)

Oslo, Norway – Last week's Oslo terrorist attacks are raising delicate questions of immigration and integration here after the admitted attacker cited anti-Muslim views as motivating the assaults.

A country of less than 5 million people, Norway has seen its once homogeneous population change in recent years with new arrivals from Africa and the Middle East. This transformation, in part, drove Anders Behring Breivik, charged with Friday's car bombing and shooting spree that killed at least 76 people in the span of a few hours.

Now, even as this country still grieves for its victims, many say how Norway responds to the attacks could define immigration policy in the future.

RECOMMENDED: Norway attacks put spotlight on Europe's right-wing parties. Who are they?

While Mr. Breivik's views, revealed in his 1,500-page tirade against Muslims and multiculturalism, are extreme and his attack reviled by Norwegians of all political leanings, Breivik fed on an undercurrent of prejudice and hatred that exists in some areas of Norwegian society, where being Norwegian is still very much determined by one’s fair skin and light hair.

“We have to find out what kind of country Norway is. That’s where the struggle is going to be in the coming years,” says Thomas Eriksen, a professor of anthropology at the University of Oslo. “And we are going to have to deal with that.”

He says many immigrants still face an uphill battle in terms of integration and acceptance from their fellow Norwegians. “They can acquire our civilization but never our culture,” he says, offering up a common opinion. “In other words, they won’t be ‘us’ they’ll always be the ‘other’.”

Indeed, experts on immigration and integration point to a growing skepticism across Norway that now surrounds most Muslim immigrants. Though Breivik’s thinking is condemned, many of his views aren’t new.

“Some of his ideas are more commonplace than we’d like them to be,” says Rune Berglund Steen, communication manager for the Norwegian Center Against Racism. "This skepticism of Muslims has become a fairly central topic in Norwegian politics.”

Norway’s second-largest political party in parliament, the Progress Party, has been accused of backing xenophobic positions and Breivik was on the party’s member registry until 2006. The party quickly denounced the attacks and Breivik’s beliefs.

Mr. Steen says most Norwegians have a positive view toward immigrants. For example, he said a recent poll found that about 8 out of 10 Norwegians found it favorable if a child attends a school with mixed ethnicities.

But for Breivik and his ilk, Muslim newcomers here represent a "takeover."

“The problem can only be solved if we completely remove those who follow Islam. In order to do this all Muslims must ‘submit’ and convert to Christianity,” he wrote in his manifesto. “If they refuse to do this voluntarily prior to Jan. 1, 2020, they will be removed from European soil and deported back to the Islamic world.”

Most Norwegians, however, reject Breivik’s anti-Islamic views, preferring to see themselves as a tolerant, peaceful people and Breivik as a backwards extremist.

“It’s the fact that he attacked our multiculturalism,” says Alexander Roine, waiting outside the courthouse where Breivik appeared Monday.

Mr. Roine, an Oslo native whose father came from Tunisia, says Norway is rightly famous for its peaceful, tolerant attitude but conceded older generations are still adjusting to the country’s brisk demographic shift.

“We would think a guy with these views would be like 50 or 60 years old,” he says of Breivik. “This guy was born in a Norway that was already multicultural. He attacked everything this country stands for to the last detail.”

Norway has experienced a steady rise in immigration, like many European countries, with the number of its immigrants doubling since 1995.Most came for the robust economy, political stability and generous welfare state, settling in dense pockets in Norway’s largest cities. It’s estimated that 11 percent of Norwegians are immigrants or the children of immigrants and about 2 percent of the population practices Islam.

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