Bomb blast hits Oslo, Norway

A huge explosion wrecked government buildings in central Oslo on Friday, including Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's office, killing at least two people and injuring several others, according to reports.


Oslo police said the explosion was caused by a bomb, the NTB news agency said.
A Reuters correspondent counted at least eight injured people.
The blast blew out most windows on the 17-story building housing Stoltenberg's office, as well as nearby ministries including the oil ministry, which was on fire.

Heavy debris littered the streets and a tall plume of brown smoke rose over the city center. The tangled wreckage of a car could be seen near the blast site.
The Reuters correspondent said the streets had been fairly quiet in mid-afternoon on a Friday in high summer, when many Oslo residents take vacation or leave for weekend breaks.




Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten said that Stoltenberg was uninjured, and was not in the building at the time of the explosion, which happened around 3:30 p.m. (9:30 a.m. EDT).
Stoltenberg, speaking about 12 p.m. ET, confirmed he was safe and said all government ministers also appeared to be unhurt.


"This is very serious," he said. He said it was too early to say if the blast was a terrorist attack.


Olaf Furniss, a freelance journalist in Oslo, told BBC News that people he had spoken to feared it was a terrorist attack.
The BBC reported residents as saying there was a smell of sulfur in the air and asked Furniss about this.

One witness in Oslo, who spoke to the BBC and was identified only as Ella, said "We are the good guys; stuff like this doesn't happen to us."


"It exploded — it must have been a bomb. People ran in panic and ran. I counted at least 10 injured people," said another witness Kjersti Vedun, who was leaving the area.
NATO member Norway has sometimes in the past been threatened by leaders of al-Qaeda for its involvement in Afghanistan. It has also taken part the NATO bombing of Libya, where Muammar Gadhafi has threatened to strike back in Europe.


However, political violence is virtually unknown in the country.
"There certainly aren't any domestic Norwegian terrorist groups although there have been some al-Qaida-linked arrests from time to time," David Lea, Western Europe analyst at Control Risks, said. "They are in Afghanistan and were involved in Libya, but it's far too soon to draw any conclusions."


John Drake, a senior risk consultant at London-based consultancy AKE said the attack may not be "too dissimilar to the terrorist attack in Stockholm in December which saw a car bomb and secondary explosion shortly after in the downtown area."
"That attack was later claimed as reprisal for Sweden's contribution to the efforts in Afghanistan," he said.