#Oslo - Anders B. Breivik, the islamophobic jihadi
How a Norwegian assassin went from being a Muslim terrorist to an islamophobic far right nationalist. When the media and "experts" are too desperate to break a story, they get it all wrong. Another embarrassing example of the pitfalls of taking at face-value 'facts' that have gone viral on social media.
Two and half hours after a bomb exploded at the Norwegian Prime Minister's office, and a man had gone on a shooting spree at a camp for Labor Party youth, two facts were known -- 17 people were killed and, as for the prime suspect:
- And yet, the only motive that gained traction among experts and commentators, in their attempts to add context to the insanity, was to categorize the blond assassin as a Jihadi - presumably a convert.
The lead of Foreign Policy's article was entitled 'Norway's 9/11?'
Norway's 9/11? - Interview with Kristian Berg HarpvikenForeign Policy: We don't know much about this bombing yet, but who would have been interested in attacking Oslo? Kristian Harpviken: The only concrete supposition that would emerge in a Norwegian context would be al Qaeda.- Foreign Policy did get one thing right: "We don't know much about this bombing yet," they wrote.
But this was immediately followed with 'expert' Kristian Harpviken asserting with total confidence that there was only one real possible explanation: al-Qaeda.
Reading the many #oslo newstweets written under the presumption of an Al Qaeda link, I was puzzled, so I asked:
But the Al Qaeda narrative was too compelling. And then this nine-day old article from the Atlantic was circulated. It was as if this confirmed the theory.
Why Does Al-Qaeda Have a Problem With Norway?Why on Earth would Norway be a target for attack? The country is famed as an international peace negotiator, the home of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the distributor of more foreign aid per capita than any other country. It's an all-round international good guy -- so long as we aren't talking about whaling.The arguments in the article were repeated by many experts and commentators I came across, although at this point there were still only those two facts that had been established: 17 dead and a white, blond Norwegian man arrested. Nevertheless, the al-Qaeda story was flourishing.
And then a new "fact" -- one that provided 'proof'! -- revealed itself, and the journalists and editors jumped on it. After all, here was exactly what they needed to legitimize the narrative they had already put forward.
Will McCants, a blogger on www.jihadica.com and CNA analyst at Johns Hopkins Faculty, was the source of this new fact. He had been monitoring Shmukh, a forum for supporters of al-Qaeda, where McCants claimed that a man named Abu Sulayman al-Nasir had taken responsibility for the attack, on behalf of a group that calls itself 'Helpers of Global Jihad.'
Alleged Claim for Oslo Attacks « jihadica
This was posted by Abu Sulayman al-Nasir to the Arabic jihadi forum, Shmukh, around 10:30am EST (thread 118187). Shmukh is the main forum for Arabic-speaking jihadis who support al-Qaeda. Since the thread is now inaccessible (either locked or taken down), I am posting it here.Even though the original thread had been deleted and the only source was McCant´s copy-pasted quote (in Arabic), the "fact" was soon picked up by news agencies and immediately went viral.
Norway News - Oslo Attacks, July 2011Powerful explosions shook central Oslo on the afternoon of July 22, 2011, blowing out the windows of several government buildings, including one housing the office of the Norwegian prime minister. The state broadcaster, citing the police, said that seven people were killed and at least 15 injured.From McCants published the quote on his blog and until NYT ran with the "fact", individual skeptical Twitters had been asking questions and when Ansar al Jihad retracked the post, they saw the story debunked.
That made NYT and BBCBreaking modify the "fact" with a caveat.
NYT continued to refer to the (largely debunked) Jihadi connection in their main story, which led other news outlet to do the same. Tweeters responded by repeating that the claim had been discredited.
