A deadly bombing that killed at least seven in Oslo on Friday can be viewed as a response to Norway’s participation in NATO-led military campaign against Libya, Russian top political experts said.
At least 92 people were killed in two separate attacks in Norway on Friday. Seven people reported to be killed in a bomb explosion at a government headquarters in Oslo and 85 were killed in a shooting at a youth summer camp on the Utoya Island, near the capital.
Norway, which is a NATO member, could have been targeted because of its participation in the military campaign against Libya, the head of the Institute of Strategic Studies and Analysis, Sergei Oznobishchev said.
Libya has been rocked by fighting between pro- and anti-government forces since mid-February. The international military operation, which began on March 19, includes France, Britain, Canada, Italy and Norway among the other NATO members.
Oznobishchev said that Tripoli’s order for carrying out the attack is not necessary since “there are many people who are ready to hold such actions…in order to show that Western society is not as secured as it may seem in Europe.”
Another top political expert, Vyacheslav Belokrinitsky, from the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences said that as the growing number of Europeans adopted Islam and supported extremist organizations, Oslo bombing could be seen as a revenge for NATO’s actions in Libya.
The experts also said the terrorist attack could be linked with the world’s top terrorist Osama bin Laden’s assassination in Pakistan by the U.S. Navy seals.
“The militants found the least secured object since Norway has not experienced the similar attacks before,” Belokrinitsky said.
The experts also did not rule out the version about the attacker’s mental disorder that pushed him to organize the bombing.
Norwegian police said that both attacks, in Oslo and on the Utoya Island, were linked. However none of the extremist groups has yet taken the responsibility for the Oslo bombing.