A right-wing Christian extremist, 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik, has been charged with bomb and gun terror attacks in Norway yesterday (22 July 2011) that have claimed at least 92 dead.
Sveinung Sponheim, a Norwegian police chief, says that Mr Breivik's recent internet postings "suggest that he has some political traits directed toward the right, and anti-Muslim views".
On a now deleted Facebook page, the alleged killer describes himself as a Christian and a conservative, and displays hardline nationalist views.
The authorities say that it is not yet clear whether Mr Breivik acted alone, or with accomplices. According to some witnesses, there may have been more people involved. But police are unable to comment further at present.
The killer was also a member of a Swedish neo-Nazi internet forum called Nordisk, says Expo, a Swedish group monitoring far-right activity.
It has also been confirmed that he was previously a member of the right-wing Progress Party, the second largest party in Norway's parliament, but that his membership was deleted in 2006.
There had been earlier media speculation that the attacks in Norway - a car bomb that claimed at least seven lives in the capital, Oslo, and the shootings at a Labour Party island youth camp which have killed 85 or more - were likely to have been the work of Islamists.
Now, however, the spotlight is on right-wing extremists bolstered by nationalist, anti-Muslim and xenophobic Christian sentiments.
Anders Behring Breivik is reported as claiming that multiculturalism, the erosion of 'Christian values' and accommodation to Islam in Norway and Europe generally had "gone too far".
Also on Ekklesia:
* Norway's warning about xenophobic politics and religion, by Simon Barrow - http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/15146
* Behind the Norway terror attacks, by Savi Hensman - http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/15144
* Christianity, extremism and Anders Behring Breivik, by Phil Wood - http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/15143
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