Mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik had no intention of killing until he was killed, which is the usual format for terrorist strikes. He was quick to drop his weapons and raise his hands in surrender immediately armed police appeared. The killings were simply part of his plan to promote a Christian jihad in Norway and he relished the coming theatre of using court appearances to sell his message.
The police investigation now underway is examining how he managed to create a bomb powerful enough to wreck the centre of the city of Oslo, and how that and the other material necessary to conduct the killings on the island of Utoya can be prevented in future.
Clearly, that would be almost impossible to stop provided the attack was planned and put in place over a period of time - as was the case with Breivik.
Nothing in his preparations broke any laws or threw the spotlight on his activities. He acquired a farm and worked it to legitimately be able to buy fertilizer, the main ingredient of his bomb. He shopped from many sources in several countries on the net to acquire items that caused no alarm to the sellers - and he joined a pistol club to mask his acquisition of firearms.
The only blessing is that this required long and careful planning and anyone suffering a rush of blood and the immediate need to kill would leave markers that raised suspicion. Hopefully, the murder spree in Oslo will make many people think long and hard when any purchase of an item that could have multiple uses comes to their attention.
It is said that there is a fine line between madness and genius. Breivik appears to straddle that line. He certainly exhibited unusual long term planning abilities - taking years to write his manifesto and collect the means of launching the attack. Even the use of a bomb to distract the authorities and give him time to slaughter a large number of innocents was an example of military planning.
Perhaps the main message radiating from Oslo is that the presence of an evil genius can occur in even the most stable and peaceful countries. Murder and bombings are commonplace in the world's hot spots.
Now we must raise the suspicion level in all the most unlikely places if we hope to prevent another
Breivik launching a reign of terror in some other community.
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