by Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
TARPLEY.net

Washington DC, July 24, 2011 – The tragic terror attacks in Norway display a number of the telltale signs of a false flag provocation. It is reported that, although the world media are attempting to focus on Anders Behring Breivik as a lone assassin in the tradition of Lee Harvey Oswald, many eyewitnesses agree that a second shooter was active in the massacre at the Utøya summer youth camp outside of Oslo. It has also come to light that a special police unit had conducted drills or exercises near the opera house in downtown Oslo which involved the detonation of bombs during 2010– exactly what caused the bloodshed a few hundred meters away this Friday. Further research reveals that United States intelligence agencies had been conducting a large-scale program of recruiting retired Norwegian police officers with the alleged purpose of conducting surveillance inside the country. This program, known as SIMAS Surveillance Detection Units, provided a perfect vehicle for the penetration and subversion of the Norwegian police by NATO.

A motive for the attack is also present: as part of its attempt to mount an independent foreign policy, including the imminent diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state as part of a general rapprochement with the Arab world, Norway was leading the smaller NATO states in dropping out of the imperialist aggressor coalition currently bombing Libya. Norway was scheduled to stop all bombing and other sorties against the Gaddafi forces as out of August 1 at the latest.

Finally, the CIA limited hangout operation known as Wikileaks has already furnished a prefabricated off-the-shelf case for incompetence and malfeasance against the current Norwegian government that is doing all these things – in the form of a series of real or doctored dispatches which document the alleged negligence of this government in dealing with the terrorist threat, all in the view of US State Department officials.

VG of Oslo: “Several” Eyewitnesses Say there were Two Shooters on the Island

As noted, world press and media of the Anglo-American school have immediately battened onto Breivik as an archetypal lone assassin cast in the mold of Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, and so many others. The problem for the terror mythographs is that , in most of these cases, there is credible to overwhelming evidence that these figures could not have acted alone. Among more recent loan assassins, Breivik could be compared to Major Nidal Hasan of Fort Hood, Texas, whose shooting spree dates back to November 2009. Hasan is accused of having killed seven people. At the time, it was considered remarkable that Hasan had managed to kill so many armed soldiers on the military base. But early reports suggested that there were one or two other shooters in addition to Hasan. As usually happens, these extra shooters were soon expunged from the hegemonic media narrative.¹

In the Norwegian case, the evidence that Breivik was not alone in claiming his fearful toll of victims is clear and convincing. Here are some excerpts from a report published by the Oslo newspaper VG:

“Several of the youths who were at the Utøya the shooting drama, told VG that they are convinced that there must have been more than one perpetrator. Marius Helander Røset believes the same thing: – I am sure that there was shooting from two different places on the island at the same time, he said.

Witnesses: – There were two people

Police believe Anders Behring Breivik (32) is the perpetrator who was dressed as a policeman , and have charged him for two terrorist attacks. Young people interviewed by VG describe an additional perpetrator – who was not wearing a police uniform. The person was following them around was 180 centimeters tall, had thick dark hair and a Nordic appearance. He had a pistol in his right hand and a rifle on his back. – I believe that there were two people who were shooting, says Alexander Stavdal (23)….

At the press conference Saturday morning opened the police said that there could have been several perpetrators and emphasized that there is an ongoing investigation.”²

The presence of a second shooter is of course most inconvenient for the lone assassin theory, since it represents incontrovertible evidence of a criminal conspiracy, the very thing which the media coverage is usually anxious to avoid. In the Norwegian case, the reports of a second shooter seemed to be persistent enough 36 hours after the main event so as to hold out some hope that the entire official version can be brought down on this particular.

Police Had Drilled Setting off Bombs in Same Area During 2010

Another telltale critical sign of a false flag operation is the holding of drills or exercises –allegedly for counterterrorism purposes — by the police or the military at the same time as the terror attack, or shortly before the real terror attack begins. Sometimes, the terror drills or exercises are scheduled to begin slightly after the time when the actual terror attack occurs. For large-scale terror actions, which the Norway attacks were, it is not uncommon for the drills to occur well in advance – 9/11, for example, was the result of capabilities which had been built up over a period of several years, as well as of future drills stretching well into 2002. In these cases, it is often discovered that the self-styled anti-terror drill or exercise contains a simulated action or event which strongly resembles the real world terror attack, the one which actually kills people. The media will then refer to an astounding coincidence or a weird happenstance, but the reality is that the terror drill has been taken live or flipped live in the form of real killings. Once the drill has occurred, the capabilities, hardware, etc., which it has created can remain in place to be mobilized at the desired moment. The secret is that the legally sanctioned drill has been used to conduit or bootleg the actual butchery through a government bureaucracy whose resources are required to run the terror but in which there are many officials who cannot be allowed to know what is happening.

The Norway events provide a very clear illustration of this principle. In Oslo, a powerful bomb went off in or near the building which houses the office of the Prime Minister. Exactly as we would expect, special anti-terror police had been drilling setting off bombs in a nearby part of the Norwegian capital in advance, specifically during 2010. The public had not been informed in advance, but found out what was happening when they began hearing bombs in the opera house district, less than a kilometer away from the prime minister’s office which was attacked on Friday. Here is a report from the newspaper Aftenposten:

“Armed police were seen in the area around the opera house in Oslo, and violent explosions could be heard over large parts of the city. No one knew that this was all a matter of practice. The Information Section of the Oslo police deeply regrets that the public was not made aware of the seemingly dramatic exercise….It was the emergency squad, the national police special unit against terrorism, which was conducting a drill in the cordoned off area at Bjørvika pier. According to a press release from the police, nearly a day after the exercise, the drill consisted of training in the controlled detonation of explosive charges….The exercise will continue for the rest of Wednesday night and a few more explosions are expected….The exercise followed a familiar pattern for all anti-terror forces around the world: The men lowered themselves down from the ceiling and into through the window that had just been blown out, while they fired hand their weapons.”³

Peter Power of Visor Consultants told BBC Radio Five in the wake of the London subway bombings of July 7, 2005 that his firm had been conducting an exercise based on explosions going off in substantially the same stations of the London underground at the same times when the real explosions had actually occurred. The Norwegian events exhibit the same kind of strange coincidence.

A Motive: Norway Had Decided to Stop Bombing Libya August 1

The targets of the Norwegian terror attacks are all expressly political, including government offices and a summer youth camp of the ruling Labor Party, and thus point in the direction of politics. The government of Norway is currently a coalition composed of the Labor Party, the Socialist Left Party, and the Center Party. Norway has traditionally attempted to cultivate a pro-Arab foreign policy, as seen in its sponsorship of the Oslo peace accords between Israeli Prime Minister Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the mid-1990s. The current government has announced its intention of granting diplomatic recognition to a Palestinian state in the near future. When the destabilization of Libya began last February, the Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of the Labor Party warned Norway’s partners in the NATO alliance against getting involved.

But soon after this, Norway gave in to US pressure and agreed to participate in NATO’s bombing of Libya for an initial period of three months, sending six planes which have carried out an estimated 10% of all the bombing raids mounted by the Atlantic alliance. However, as the end of its three-month commitment had passed, Norway had reduced its contingent to four planes during the month of July, and had announced on June 10 that it was planning to withdraw altogether from the NATO bombing coalition no later than August 1.

The Norwegian decision to drop out of the NATO attack coalition was associated with a similar move by the Netherlands, which was announced on that same day of June 10. The Dutch had decided to maintain their contingent of six planes, but will no longer take part in bombing attacks on ground targets. Henceforth, the Dutch are willing only to help enforce the no-fly zone through air interdiction. There was therefore the potential that Norway’s example could trigger a general tendency by the smaller NATO states to quit the bombing coalition, in which their collective presence is highly significant.

Leading figures of the Norwegian government were among the first to undercut the supposed rationale for the NATO bombing, while urging negotiations: ‘”The solution to the problems in Libya are political, they cannot be solved by military means alone,” Norwegian Prime Minister Stoltenberg told reporters gathered for a conference in Oslo on May 13. “We are very much supporting all efforts to find a political solution to the challenges we are facing in Libya,” he added. Norway’s government …pledged to scale down its role in NATO-orchestrated air strikes on Libya after its current three-month commitment ends on June 24.⁴

This was the policy of the entire Norwegian government: ‘Norway will scale down its fighter jet contribution in Libya from six to four planes and withdraw completely from the NATO-led operation by Aug. 1, the government said Friday…. Defense Minister Grete Faremo said she expects understanding from NATO allies because Norway has a small air force and cannot “maintain a large fighter jet contribution during a long time.” Norway’s air force, meanwhile says its F-16 jets have carried out about 10 percent of the NATO airstrikes in Libya since March 31. The parties in Norway’s center-left coalition government had been at odds over whether to extend the country’s participation, which was scheduled to expire June 24. The most leftist faction in the government, the Socialist Left Party, opposed an extension, but a compromise was reached to stay in the operation until Aug. 1 with fewer planes. “It is wise to end the Norwegian fighter jet contribution. Now Norway should apply its efforts to find a peaceful solution in Libya,” Socialist Left Party lawmaker Baard Vegar Solhjell said.’⁵

State Department Complained of Norway’s “Lack of Commitment” to Libyan Adventure

The Norwegian decision to stop waging war against Libya, the first of its kind by any member of the Atlantic alliance, has attracted the attention of diplomatic observers, one of whom commented that the current government in Oslo has advocated “a distinctly more peaceful approach to global policies by the Norwegian government…. [despite] recent pressure from the US on Norway to contribute more in Libya military campaign. Norway has been resisting that pressure and pushing for a more peaceful approach to the US-led NATO attacks on Libya and refused to provide weapons to NATO, finally announcing last month that Norway would quit its military role in Libya by August 1. In March, as the US was rallying unilateral support to invade Libya, Norway’s minister of foreign affairs Jonas Gahr Støre was one of the few nations to warn the US against armed intervention in Libya. Norway initially supplied six fighter jets for Libya operations and has carried out about 10% of the Libya strikes since 19 March. However, US officials singled out Norway and Denmark for their ‘lack of commitment’ to the mission to oust Gaddafi… Other Norway-Libya links include Norway’s major oil- and fertilizer-related interests in Libya: the Norwegian state-owned Statoil, which has about 30 employees at its Tripoli offices….[Norway’s] businesses have conducted major business operations in Libya, in co-operation with Qaddafi’s regime.”⁶

At the present stage of the inquiry, the best estimate of a motive for the Norwegian attacks is to punish the country for its independent and pro-Arab foreign policy in general, and for its repudiation of the NATO bombing coalition arrayed against Libya in particular.

Are SIMAS Surveillance Detection Units the New Gladio for Norway?

US and NATO intelligence have been shown to possess extraordinary capabilities inside Norway, many of which may be operating outside of the control of the Norwegian government. In early November 2010, the Oslo television channel TV2 exposed the existence of an extensive network of paid assets and informants of US intelligence recruited from the ranks of retired police and other officials. The ostensible goal of this program was the surveillance of Norwegians who were taking part in demonstrations and other activities critical of the United States and its policies. One of the Norwegians recruited was the former chief of the anti-terror section of the Oslo police.⁷ Although the goal was supposedly merely surveillance, it is possible to imagine some other and far more sinister activities that could be carried out by such a network of retired cops, including the identification and subversion of rotten apples on the active-duty police force. Some of the capabilities of a network of this type would not be totally alien to the sort of events that have just occurred in Norway.

The official name for the type of espionage cell which the United States was creating in Norway is Surveillance Detection Unit (SDU). The SDUs in turn operate within the framework of the Security Incident Management Analysis System (SIMAS). SIMAS is known to be used for spying and surveillance by US Embassies not just in the Nordic bloc of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, but worldwide. The terror events also raise the question of whether SIMAS has an operational dimension. Could this apparatus represents a modern version of the Cold War stay behind networks set up in all NATO countries and best-known under the name of the Italian branch, Gladio?

The Norwegian government needs to find out. Thus far Norwegian ministers have asserted that they never approved the SIMAS network of SDUs. “We never knew about it,” claimed Norway’s Justice Minister Knut Storberget and Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in chorus. Hillary Clinton stated instead that the Norwegians had been informed.

CIA’s Wikileaks Limited Hangout Has Rationale for Toppling Norway’s Government

Thanks to document dumps by the CIA limited hangout subsidiary generally known as Wikileaks, an obvious path for using the Norwegian terror attacks as a rationale for overthrowing the current government has already been provided. Real or doctored State Department cables obligingly made available by Wikileaks portray the Norwegian government which NATO hates as a collection of bunglers and misfits, unable to take effective measures to safeguard the national security of the country.

Some of these tables have been published in the immediate wake of the terror attacks by the London Daily Telegraph, a newspaper reputedly close to NATO intelligence circles. According to this article, while ‘talking about an attempt by the Police Security Service (PST) to track one particular suspected Al Qaeda terror cell, a cable written by the US Ambassador to Norway, Barry White, describes [how Norwegian authorities] … refused the help of the UK authorities to put surveillance on a potential suspect and adds: “Not only will they not put their own resources on him…but they also just turned down the visiting UK intel service’s offer of two twelve-person surveillance teams.” The cable goes on to say the UK and US intelligence services analyzed coded conversation between terror suspects and decided it warranted surveillance. But, says the cable, “PST instead found a way to interpret the same translated coded conversation in a rosier, less threatening light, an interpretation which makes little sense to the US or UK.”’ A catalog of even the most recent failures and fiascos of the FBI and the CIA in the so-called Global War on Terror would help to put these hypocritical judgments into proper perspective, but it would also be too voluminous to be appended here.

Another damaging particular appears made to order for an attempt to blame the alleged bungling of the Norwegian government for the Oslo bomb attack: ‘The memo also reveals how, despite apparently having surveillance on the suspect, the PST lost track of bomb-making equipment which was being stored in an apartment after it was apparently removed without investigators’ noticing. The PST then failed to track one suspect for 14 days because the investigator assigned to him was called away on another job. The memo concludes: “The PST is in over its head…it simply cannot keep up.”’

Another State Department memo dished up by Wikileaks, supposedly written in 2007… adds: “The official police (PST) threat evaluation…states that international terror organizations are not a direct threat against Norway. A memo written in 2008 shows how the US felt that Norway was not awake to the possibility of a potential terrorist attack. The cable reads: “We repeatedly press Norwegian authorities to take terrorism seriously. We will seek to build on this momentum to fight the still-prevalent feeling that terrorism happens elsewhere, not in peaceful Norway.” And a cable written just last year adds: “The PST still viewed Denmark as more of a target than Norway, for reasons very specific to the cartoon controversy.” ⁸

The government of Norway needs to go on the offensive and establish the whole truth of what has just occurred. Otherwise, that government is likely to succumb to the internationally orchestrated campaign which the Wikileaks documents so clearly foreshadow.