Last updated: 13 Nov 12 @ 03:25  |  

"Breivik's twin terror attacks in 2011 were an intelligence failure comparable to 9/11 and 7/7"

Anthony Tucker-Jones reports on the trial of Anders Breivik who inflicted the worst terror atrocity on Norway since the Second World War, and explores the growth of far right extremism is Europe

The trial of Anders Behring Breivik has reopened the debate on the threat posed by political extremism in Norway and more generally in Europe as a whole. It also raises a question over the psychology of individuals who are prepared to propagate their political beliefs through acts of terrible violence. While some argue that Breivik was a lone wolf, others give credence to his claims to be part of an extensive far right network. He was a member of the second largest and main opposition party in Norway – the anti-immigration conservative Progress Party – until 2007. Evidently Breivik underwent extreme radicalisation after his departure through an assimilation of far right ideology.

To drive home his far right credentials, when Breivik first appeared in court on 16 April 2012 he gave a clenched fist salute. On his second day in court, after repeating his Nazi-style salute, he said, “I have carried out the most sophisticated and spectacular political attack in Europe since the Second World War”, and added that