Norway Massacre: 'Fundamentalist Christian' Killer Anders Behring Breivik Reveals Hatred of Modern Church
By Daniel Blake | Christian Post Contributor Sat, Jul. 23 2011 03:35 PM EDT
Breivik was baptized into the Protestant church by "his own free will," but in recent years expressed disappointment and his disgust at the Protestant Church, and his support for an "indirect collective conversion” of the Protestant Church back to the Catholic Church.
Breivik's Facebook page was taken down on Friday, but not before the media could glean some insight from it. The Atlantic reports that his favorite books are Franz Kafka's The Trial and George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty- Four. His favorite television show is “Dexter,” which features a serial killer as its main character.
Breivik’s blogs reveal a lot about his thoughts and views:
1) On the “Church” he blogged:
"Today's Protestant church is a joke. Priests in jeans who march for Palestine and churches that look like minimalist shopping centres. I am a supporter of an indirect collective conversion of the Protestant church back to the Catholic."
2) On “Hate Theologies” he blogged:
“Islam (ism) has historically led to 300 million deaths. Communism has historically led to 100 million deaths. Nazism has historically led to 6-20 million deaths. ALL hate ideologies should be treated equally.”
3) On “Fear of Islam Taking Over Oslo” he blogged:
“There are political forces in Oslo who want mass-subsidised and low-cost 'Islam-blocks' in Oslo West for 'better integration'... If this ever becomes the case, most of Oslo West will move to Bærum (and most will eventually follow).
4) On “Marxists in Norway and Sweden” he blogged:
“In Norway and Sweden extreme Marxist attitudes have become acceptable/everyday while the old-established truths of patriotism and cultural conservatism today are branded as extremism.”
5) On the “English Defence League” he blogged:
“The tactics of the EDL is to 'entice' an overreaction from jihad youth/extreme Marxists, something they have succeeded [in] several times already.”
6) On his anger towards the “Progress Party” he blogged:
“The vast majority of new faces in the Progress party are now politically correct career politicians and not in any way idealists who are willing to take risks and work for idealistic goals.”
This image taken from a helicopter shows the gunman walking among bodies on Utoya island, Norway (Marius Arnesen / Reuters / July 22, 2011)
Police describe Anders Behring Breivik as a 'right-wing Christian fundamentalist,' while friends reportedly say he had begun voicing increasingly extremist views.
By Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times July 23, 2011, 8:34 p.m.
Reporting from Oslo, Norway— In the photographs now circulating around the world, Anders Behring Breivik looks almost preppy.
Neatly parted blond hair frames a boyishly handsome face. The upturned collar of a peach-colored polo shirt pokes through a dark Izod sweater.
It's hard to reconcile the softly smiling young man in these professional studio shots with the monster who witnesses say donned a police uniform and ruthlessly hunted down scores of young Norwegians, firing at those who jumped into freezing water in a desperate bid to escape.
"I'll kill every one of you," he shouted at victims, witnesses recalled.
Now it is up to investigators to fit the two seemingly incongruous images together in an effort to comprehend what motivated the man believed to be behind the attacks.
As more details emerge, Norwegians are coming to terms with the fact that rather than some radical foreign agenda shattering the idyllic society they sought to create here, the twin attacks appear to have been orchestrated by a lone home-grown terrorist — raised and educated in a middle-class family and who never had problems with the law before.
According to a Facebook page with Breivik's name and photo, the 32-year-old describes himself as a former business-school student with interests including Winston Churchill, bodybuilding and Freemasonry. His listed preferences include violent movies, war-themed video games, classical music and the HBO drama "Dexter," about a guilt-ridden serial killer.
Police are focusing on a darker side, describing him as a "right-wing Christian fundamentalist" who frequented extremist websites and left a trail of passionate, sometimes obscure rants that reflected strong anti-Islamic views, deep skepticism about the mixing of different cultures and animosity toward socialism.
Officials said they would not speculate on whether his political or religious views played a role in the attack.
But a chilling 1,500-page political manifesto, titled "A European Declaration of Independence," posted on the Internet earlier this year appears to lay out Breivik's world views. Exact authorship of the book could not be immediately verified.
Sections of the online book include "What your government, the academia and the media are hiding from you," "Documenting EU's deliberate strategy to Islamize Europe" and "How the feminists' 'War Against the Boys' paved the way for Islam."
The book calls for a "conservative revolution" and "preemptive declaration of war," including "armed resistance against the cultural Marxists/multiculturalist regimes of Western Europe."
It describes "attack strategies," including assassinating professors and carrying out coordinated assaults on multiple targets at the same time.
In a passage that appeared to predict the tactics in the twin attacks on Friday, the manifesto advises: "You will usually always be caught, so instead of going home and waiting for someone to knock at your door, move to your second target, then the third, etc."
The treatise suggests wearing a police SWAT uniform as a disguise to avoid raising suspicion while moving around with weapons. And it specifically mentions targeting annual political meetings, barbecues and gatherings that draw hundreds of people, using flame-throwers or assault rifles on the crowds. "The party delegates will flee like rats from the fire,'' the book reads.
Friends of Breivik — a single man who lived in Oslo with his mother until recently — said he began in recent years to voice ever more extremist and nationalist views, according to Norwegian media reports. He is a gun enthusiast, with several weapons registered in his name, but he did not appear to exhibit any violent behavior, other than his writings, that might have raised red flags.
On social media forums, he claimed to be a disgruntled former member of Norway's anti-tax, small-government Progress Party, according to the Norwegian Nettavisen news service.
In 2009, he founded a farming company called Breivik Geofarm, which cultivates melons and roots, according to Norway's TV2.
Now investigators are focusing on whether he used that business to buy fertilizer that could have been used to construct the powerful bomb that went off near a government facility in downtown Oslo.
On a Twitter account created recently in his name, a July 17 posting quotes British philosopher John Stuart Mill and gives little indication of a man preparing to use guns and bombs to deliver his message: "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests."
edmund.sanders@latimes.com
Times staff writers Janet Stobart in London and Henry Chu in Oslo contributed to this report.
This undated image obtained on Saturday from Facebook shows Anders Behring Breivik, the 32-year-old suspect questioned by Norway's police over twin attacks on a youth camp and the government headquarters. AFP - Getty Images
Accused shooter belonged to anti-immigration party, opposed multiculturalism, Islam
msnbc.com staff and news service reports updated 7/23/2011 9:31:37 PM ET
The 32-year-old Norwegian man suspected of Norway's shooting and bomb massacre calls his deeds "atrocious" yet "necessary" and will explain in court, his lawyer said Sunday.
Meanwhile, a 1,500-page manifesto emerged that carried detailed planning for and direct references to an attack on the summer camp where most of the deaths occurred.
Anders Behring Breivik was arrested after Friday's massacre of at least 85 people — mostly teens — on a tiny forested holiday island that was hosting a summer camp for the youth wing of Norway's ruling Labor party. Breivik was also charged in the bombing of Oslo's government district, which killed seven people hours earlier.
"He has said that he believed the actions were atrocious, but that in his head they were necessary," defense lawyer Geir Lippestad told TV2 news.
Lippestad said his client was willing to explain himself in a court hearing on Monday. The court will decide at the hearing whether to keep the suspect in detention pending his trial.
If convicted on the terrorism charges, he would face a maximum of 21 years in jail, police said.
It was unclear what unleashed the bloodshed, though news agency NTB said Breivik was a member of a gun club and legally owned firearms. At the shooting, police said Breivik carried a Glock pistol and an automatic weapon. Police said Breivik surrendered to authorities and has since confessed.
Deputy police chief Roger Andresen declined to comment on the possible motive for the killings, but said: "We have no more information than ... what has been found on (his) own websites, which is that is goes toward the right (wing) and that it is, so to speak, Christian fundamentalist."
Breivik, who liked guns and weight-lifting, belonged to an anti-immigration party and opposed multiculturalism, Islam and the "cultural Marxists" of the establishment.
Suspect's manifesto
A Norwegian discussion website provided a link to an 1,500-page electronic book by an individual called Andrew Berwick, who also uploaded a 12-minute video on YouTube called called "Knights Templar 2083." In the book, Berwick is revealed as Anders Behring Breivik.
It could not be verified who posted the video or who wrote the book.
Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat on its website reported that at least one Finnish politician, a member of the populist True Finns, received the e-mail manifesto Friday afternoon.
Norway has traditionally been open to immigration, which has been criticized by the Progress Party, of which Breivik was for a short time a member. The Labor Party, whose youth camp Breivik attacked, has long been in favor of immigration.
In the book, he writes about infiltrating the youth camp of a ruling party and assassinating the party leader.
The New York Times, citing Norwegian and American officials familiar with the investigation, said the manifesto includes a detailed diary of months of planning for the attacks [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/world/europe/24oslo.html (next below)].
The manifesto, titled “2083: A European Declaration of Independence,” calls for a Christian war against Muslim domination in Europe, the Times reported.
"Once you decide to strike, it is better to kill too many than not enough, or you risk reducing the desired ideological impact of the strike," the book said.
The Times reported that the manifesto describes his purchase of chemicals, experiments in making explosives and a successful test June 13.
The Times said it ends: “I believe this will be my last entry. It is now Fri July 22nd, 12.51.”
The video on YouTube promotes a fight against Islam, apparently showing pictures of the suspect, wearing a wetsuit and pointing an automatic weapon. The video had been removed from the site Saturday afternoon.
"Before we can start our crusade we must do our duty by decimating cultural marxism," said a caption under the video.
The video was uploaded to YouTube on July 22, the day of the attacks.
More measured tones
The video and book are in contrast to the more measured tones used by Breivik in 2009 and 2010 in comments on blogs on a Norwegian website critical of Islam, www.documents.no.
"What most people still do not understand is that the ongoing Islamicisation of Europe cannot be stopped before one gets to grips with the political doctrine which it make possible (and the individuals which front these doctrines)," he wrote in October 2009.
"When did multiculturalism cease to be an ideology designed to deconstruct European culture, traditions, identity and nation-states?" said one his entries, posted on Feb. 2, 2010.
Another entry dated Feb. 16 last year said: "According to two studies, 13 percent of young British Muslims aged between 15 and 25 support al Qaeda ideology."
He does not advocate violence in any of the comments.
Breivik wrote he was a backer of the "Vienna School of Thought," which was against multi-culturalism and the spread of Islam.
The Vienna reference seems to concern the halt of the Ottoman Turkish invasion at Vienna in 1683.
He also wrote he admired Geert Wilders, the populist anti-Islam Dutch politician, for following that school. Wilders said in a statement on Saturday: "I despise everything he stands for and everything he did."
'Rather introverted'
People who Breivik said he was quiet and intense.
"He was rather introverted at school, even though he was a good student," said Michael Tomola, who knew Breivik from the age of 13 to 16 at the school they went to in an Oslo suburb.
"I'm very surprised by this (attack). I had a good impression, although he became very engaged in subjects he cared for. He got very extreme about things he cared for," Tomola told Reuters.
The Facebook page set up last week included a variety of interests such as hunting and political and stock analysis. His tastes in music included classical and trance, a hypnotic form of dance music.
A Facebook profile for an Oslo man of that name and age was removed early Saturday. It included a profile photo identical to the one being used by Norwegian media. In the profile, he listed himself as "single," "Christian" and "conservative" and says he is director of Breivik Geofarm. It had listed interests including bodybuilding, conservative politics and freemasonry. The account had no posts.
Fringe group bars suspect
A fringe European anti-Islamist lobby group said Saturday Breivik had tried to join their Facebook group 18 months ago but had been rejected over his apparent neo-Nazi links.
Breivik said in an Internet posting [ http://www.document.no/anders-behring-breivik/ ] in December 2009 he had had discussions with SIOE, but the organization had no record of this, said Anders Gravers, founder of Stop Islamization of Europe.
"He has never been in contact with us and he has never given us any advice," Gravers told Reuters.
But he said it was possible Breivik had attended one of its demonstrations.
He said an SIOE member in the Faroe Islands had checked Breivik's Facebook "friends" on the social media site when he tried to join and discovered one who used a picture of Danish neo-Nazi leader Jonni Hansen as his profile picture.
"He advised us not to allow this guy to join or be able to post on the Facebook wall (message page)," said SIOE co-founder Stephen Gash.
SOIE, which says it has 30,000 followers on Facebook, was founded by Gravers and Gash in 2007 with the aim of "preventing Islam becoming a dominant political force in Europe."
His turn to extremism
The Norwegian daily Verdens Gang quoted a friend as saying he became a right-wing extremist in his late 20s. It said he expressed strong nationalistic views in online debates and had been a strong opponent of multiculturalism.
Norwegian journalist Liss Goril Anda, writing for the BBC [ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14260743 ], said Breivik had left "racist, extremist right-wing comments along with fellow anti-Muslims" on the websites. She also said there were attempts to set up groups allied to the English Defence League in the U.K.
"These all represent, with varying degrees of extremism, a section of the Norwegian population which feels that the country's immigration policies are too lax," Goril Anda wrote. "They feel disenfranchised despite Norway's attempts at distributing fairly its immense oil wealth. Norway might now be forced to deal head-on with this undercurrent of nationalism and anti-immigration sentiments."
A Twitter account [ https://twitter.com/#!/AndersBBreivik ] apparently for Breivik used the same profile photo and has but one tweet, dated July 17: "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100000 who have only interests."
The 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill, known for his theory of utilitarianism, once said, " One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests [ http://twitter.com/#!/TheDailyRadical/status/81285998197215232 ]."
The authenticity of the online accounts could not immediately be verified, but government business records [ http://w2.brreg.no/enhet/sok/detalj.jsp?orgnr=994089269 ] list a man of the same name and age as sole director of Breivik Geofarm.
In the records, the company says its business is the "growing of vegetables, melons, roots and tubers" and reports that it has 790 employees.
Bought fertilizer
A farm supply firm said Saturday that the suspect had bought 6 tons of fertilizer in May. Some kinds of agricultural fertilizer have been used in the past to make explosives.
The suspect placed the order through his company, the supplier said.
"It was 6 tons of fertilizer, which is a small, normal order for a standard agricultural producer," Oddny Estenstad, a spokeswoman at agricultural supply chain Felleskjoepet Agri, said.
Police were earlier reported to be trying to determine whether the farm could have provided the chemicals needed to build a large bomb like the one that exploded Friday in Oslo.
Police said the attacker may have had accomplices, The Telegraph reported.
Msnbc.com's Alex Johnson and Reuters contributed to this report.
Oslo Suspect Wrote of Fear of Islam and Plan for War
Emergency medical workers on Saturday aided survivors of a gunman's attack at a camp on the Norwegian island of Utoya. Morten Edvarsen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A Twitter account apparently belonging to Mr. Breivik had one item, posted last Sunday: "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests."
By STEVEN ERLANGER and SCOTT SHANE Published: July 23, 2011
OSLO — The Norwegian man charged Saturday with a pair of attacks in Oslo that killed at least 92 people left behind a detailed manifesto outlining his preparations and calling for a Christian war to defend Europe against the threat of Muslim domination, according to Norwegian and American officials familiar with the investigation.
As stunned Norwegians grappled with the deadliest attack in the country since World War II, a portrait began to emerge of the suspect, Anders Behring Breivik [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/anders_behring_breivik/index.html ], 32. The police identified him as a right-wing fundamentalist Christian, while acquaintances described him as a gun-loving Norwegian obsessed with what he saw as the threats of multiculturalism and Muslim immigration.
“We are not sure whether he was alone or had help,” a police official, Roger Andresen, said at a televised news conference. “What we know is that he is right wing and a Christian fundamentalist.”
In the 1,500-page manifesto, posted on the Web hours before the attacks, Mr. Breivik recorded a day-by-day diary of months of planning for the attacks, and claimed to be part of a small group that intended to “seize political and military control of Western European countries and implement a cultural conservative political agenda.”
He predicted a conflagration that would kill or injure more than a million people, adding, “The time for dialogue is over. We gave peace a chance. The time for armed resistance has come.”
The manifesto was signed Andrew Berwick, an Anglicized version of his name. A former American government official briefed on the case said investigators believed the manifesto was Mr. Breivik’s work.
The manifesto, entitled “2083: A European Declaration of Independence,” equates liberalism and multiculturalism with “cultural Marxism,” which the document says is destroying European Christian civilization.
The document also describes a secret meeting in London in April 2002 to reconstitute the Knights Templar, a Crusader military order. It says the meeting was attended by nine representatives of eight European countries, evidently including Mr. Breivik, with an additional three members unable to attend, including a “European-American.”
The document does not name the attendees or say whether they were aware of Mr. Breivik’s planned attacks, though investigators presumably will now try to determine if the people exist and what their connection is to Mr. Breivik.
Thomas Hegghammer, a terrorism specialist at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, said the manifesto bears an eerie resemblance to those of Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders, though from a Christian rather than a Muslim point of view. Like Mr. Breivik’s manuscript, the major Qaeda declarations have detailed accounts of the Crusades, a pronounced sense of historical grievance and calls for apocalyptic warfare to defeat the religious and cultural enemy.
“It seems to be an attempt to mirror Al Qaeda, exactly in reverse,” Mr. Hegghammer said.
Mr. Breivik was also believed to have posted a video on Friday summarizing his arguments. In its closing moments, the video depicts Mr. Breivik in military uniform, holding assault weapons. Rarely has a mass murder suspect left so detailed an account of his activities. The manifesto describes in detail his purchase of chemicals, his sometimes ham-handed experiments making explosives and his first successful test detonation of a bomb in a remote location on June 13.
He intersperses the account of bomb-making with details of his television-watching, including the Eurovision music contest and the American police drama “The Shield.”
The manifesto ends with a chilling signoff: “I believe this will be my last entry. It is now Fri July 22nd, 12.51.”
Indeed, the operation appeared to have been extremely well planned.
According to the police, Mr. Breivik first drew security services to central Oslo when he exploded a car bomb outside a 17-story government office building, killing at least seven people.
Then he took a public ferry to Utoya Island, where he carried out a remarkably meticulous attack on Norway’s current and future political elite. Dressed as a police officer, he announced that he had come to check on the security of the young people who were attending a political summer camp there, many of them the children of members of the governing Labor Party.
He gathered the campers together and for some 90 hellish minutes he coolly and methodically shot them, hunting down those who fled. At least 85 people, some as young as 16, were killed.
The police said Saturday evening that they expected the death toll to climb. There were still bodies in the bombed government buildings in Oslo, and at least four people missing on Utoya.
The police also said that unexploded munitions were still in some downtown Oslo buildings, and they had not ruled out the possibility that Mr. Breivik had accomplices.
He was equipped, the police said, with an automatic rifle and a handgun; when the police finally got to the island — about 40 minutes after they were called, the police said — Mr. Breivik surrendered.
The police also said he had registered a farm in Rena, in eastern Norway, which allowed him to order a large quantity of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, an ingredient that can be used to make explosives. The authorities were investigating whether the chemical had been used in the bombing.
Besides the manifesto, Mr. Breivik left other hints of his motives.
A Facebook page and Twitter account were set up under his name days before the rampage. The Facebook page cites philosophers like Machiavelli, Kant and John Stuart Mill.
His lone Twitter post, while not calling for violence, paraphrased Mill — “One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests” — suggesting what he saw as his ability to act.
Those postings, along with what was previously known about Mr. Breivik publicly, aligned with but hardly predicted the bloody rampage he would undertake on Friday.
Before then, he had been a member of the right-wing Progress Party, which began as an antitax protest and has been stridently anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim.
Joran Kallmyr, a member of the party who is now Oslo’s vice mayor for transportation, said he met Mr. Breivik several times in 2002 and 2003 at local party meetings. “He was very quiet, almost a little bit shy,” Mr. Kallmyr said. “But he was a normal person with good behavior. He never shared any extreme thoughts or speech with us. There was absolutely no reason to expect that he could do something like this. We’re very shocked.”
Mr. Breivik quit the party in 2006, apparently disappointed by the party’s move toward the center.
“He didn’t like our politics, I guess, and moved on,” Mr. Kallmyr said.
His Internet posts also indicated contempt for the Conservative Party, which he accused of having given up the battle against multiculturalism.
But on Friday he directed his firepower at the center-left Labor Party, which leads the coalition government.
“Breivik feels that multiculturalism is destroying the society and that the enforcing authority is the prime minister and the Labor Party, the lead party of contemporary Norwegian politics,” said Anders Romarheim, a fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies.
But the attacks, along with what appear to have been years of preparation for them, raised questions about whether the Norwegian security authorities, concentrating on threats of Islamic terrorism, had overlooked the threat from the anti-Islamic right.
“This is the Norwegian equivalent to Timothy McVeigh,” the right-wing American who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, said Marcus Buck, a political scientist at the University of Tromso in northern Norway. “This is right-wing domestic terrorism, and the big question is to what extent Norwegian agencies have diverted their attention from what they knew decades ago was the biggest threat” to focus instead on Islamic militants.
The unclassified versions of the last three Norwegian Police Security Service reports assessing national threats all played down any threat by right-wing and nationalist extremists. Instead, the reports emphasized the dangers posed by radical Islam, groups opposed to Norway’s military involvement in Afghanistan and Libya, and others.
The 2011 report, released early this year, concluded that “the far-right and far-left extremist communities will not represent a serious threat to Norwegian society.”
Even after the attacks, that appeared to be the official position.
“Compared to other countries I wouldn’t say we have a big problem with right-wing extremists in Norway,” Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told reporters at a news conference on Saturday. “But we have had some groups, we have followed them before, and our police is aware that there are some right-wing groups.”
Even if the authorities had focused on right-wing groups, it was unlikely that they would have noticed Mr. Breivik.
Kari Helene Partapuoli, director of the Norwegian Center Against Racism, said Mr. Breivik did not belong to any violent neo-Nazi groups that she was aware of, and his Internet postings, before those of last week, did not espouse violence.
“The distance between the words spoken and the acts that he carried out is gigantic, because what he did is in a different league of what the debates have to do about,” she said.
Arild Groven, secretary general of the Norwegian Shooting Association, a sports group, confirmed that Mr. Breivik had belonged to Oslo Pistolklubb, one of the 520 clubs in the association.
“We all read and watch the news about the shootings in the United States,” Mr. Groven said. “But it doesn’t happen here.”
Mr. Romarheim said in some ways the homegrown nature of the attack made it harder for Norwegians to accept. “With 9/11 in America, people could ask, ‘Who are they?’ and could pour their rage out on someone else,” he said. “But we can’t disavow this person, he’s one of us.”
Steven Erlanger reported from Oslo, and Scott Shane from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Elisa Mala, Michael Schwirtz and Matthew Saltmarsh from Oslo, David Jolly from Paris, Nicholas Kulish from Berlin and Christina Anderson from Stockholm.
A picture is emerging of Norway attacks suspect Anders Behring Breivik as a right-wing Christian fundamentalist.
By the CNN Wire Staff July 23, 2011 -- Updated 1951 GMT (0351 HKT)
(CNN) -- As Norway struggles to come to terms with its greatest loss of life in decades, all eyes are on the man charged in the explosion in central Oslo and the deadly shooting rampage at a youth camp.
While police have not officially named him, Norwegian television and newspaper reports have identified the suspect as 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik, of Norwegian origin.
A picture is emerging, gleaned from official sources and social media, of a right-wing Christian fundamentalist who may have had an issue with Norway's multi-cultural society.
Norwegian and international news outlets have run photographs of a blond man with blue-green eyes and chiseled features, dressed in a preppy style.
A victim who was shot during the attack at the youth camp on Utoya island told CNN Saturday that he had seen pictures of Breivik taken from what is believed to be his Facebook page and shown on NRK and TV2. The victim said he recognized the man from the news reports as the gunman.
Breivik is a member of the Oslo Pistol Club and has three weapons registered in his name, according to leading Norwegian newspaper VG, citing Norway's official weapons register. They are a Glock pistol, a rifle and a shotgun, VG reported.
NRK reports that Breivik does not have a military background and was exempt from Norway's mandatory military service. He has not had any special military training, it adds on its website.
He was a youth and adult member of the conservative Fremskrittspartiet (FrP) or Progress Party, VG newspaper reports, remaining involved until 2007. The party's most prominent manifesto pledge is to minimize immigration.
His membership was confirmed by a senior party member, Jonas Kallmyr, who is quoted by VG as saying that encountering Breivik was "like meeting Hitler before World War II."
The leader of the Progress Party, Siv Jensen, told Norwegian broadcaster TV2 News she was "horrified" to learn that the suspect was a former member of her party.
"But this is first and foremost an attack against the entire nation. It has affected all of us," she said, saying that her party members stood in solidarity with the youth movement of the Labour Party.
A post in Breivik's name on an online forum, Document.no, from December 2009, talks about non-Muslim teenagers being "in an especially precarious situation with regards to being harassed by Islamic youth."
"I know of many hundred occasions where non-Muslims have been robbed, beaten up and harassed by Islamic gangs," the post reads. "I had a best friend between the ages of 12-17 who was a Pakistani, so I was one of the many protected, cool 'potatoes' that had protection. But this also made me see the hypocrisy up close and personal and made me nauseous."
Such anti-Islamic sentiment is nothing new in Norway or other European nations, where there has been resistance against increasing numbers of Muslims and their practices.
About 3% of Norway's population in 2010 -- 144,000 people -- were Muslim, but that was expected to more than double to 6.5% over the next 20 years, according to a report released earlier this year by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. That is one of the largest percentage increases in Muslim populations across all of Europe, thanks in part to fertility rates significantly higher than those of non-Muslims.
Another post in Breivik's name in October 2009 advises "Hans", described as the founder of Document.no, to "develop an alternative to the violent extreme Norwegian Marxist organisations Blitz, SOS Rasisme and Rod Ungdom" -- all left-wing movements in Norway.
"The conservatives dare not openly express their viewpoints in public because they know that the extreme Marxists will trump them. We cannot accept the fact that the Labour Party is subsidising these violent "Stoltenberg jugend", who are systematically terrorising the politically conservative," the post reads.
He is making a reference to the youth movement of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who heads the Labour Party.
A Twitter account attributed to Breivik by Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has only one message, dated July 17. "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who has only interests," it says, adapting a quote from 19th-century British philosopher John Stuart Mill.
Police have not ruled out the possibility that other people may have helped the suspect.
"The official questioning is starting now," Roger Andresen, a police official, told reporters during a news conference Saturday.
The suspect was cooperating with police, making it clear he wanted to explain himself, Andresen said.
Norway's police website said the suspect is currently charged with breaking paragraph 147a of the penal code -- a terrorism offense, with a maximum sentence of 21 years.
The statement said he was charged in both the Utoya attack and the bombing of government buildings in Oslo, and that the charges might change. "The suspect has never been arrested by the police before," it said.
Two addresses connected to the suspect are being searched, police said. One of them is believed to be an apartment in Oslo and the other a farm in Hedmark.
NRK reports that Breivik is registered as having run a company that produced "vegetables, melons, roots and tubers" -- an industry which allows access to large amounts of fertilizer, the broadcaster notes, which can be used for explosives.
An employee at a Norwegian agricultural cooperative told CNN that the man identified in media reports as the suspect in Friday's attacks bought six tons of fertilizer from her company in May.
Oddmy Estenstad, of Felleskjopet Agr, said she did not think the order was strange at the time because the suspect has a farm, but after the Oslo attack she called police because she knew the material can be used to make bombs.
"We are very shocked that this man was connected to our company," said Estenstad. "We are very sad about what happened."
More details on the man are sure to emerge in the coming hours and days. But what many Norwegians find hard to comprehend is that the chief suspect in the massacre appears to be one of their own.
Stoltenberg stressed that whoever was behind the attacks must be dealt with properly.
"It is very important that those who are responsible -- one or several persons -- are sentenced according to Norwegian law, in the Norwegian system of justice," he said.
"Norway is a small country but it is a proud country. We are all very close, especially in times like this."
CNN's Laura Smith-Spark and Cynthia Wamwayi contributed to this report.
Norway suspect's tract says attacks prepared since 2009
AFP | Jul 24, 2011, 05.42AM IST
Oslo. A rambling 1,500-page tract apparently written by the Norwegian man accused of killing at least 92 people in twin attacks says he has been preparing the operation since at least autumn 2009.
The Internet document is part diary, part bomb-making manual and part political rant in which Anders Behring Breivik details his Islamophobia, attacks on Marxism and his initiation as a Knight Templar.
One entry titled "Autumn 2009 -- Phase Shift" explains how he set up front mining and farming businesses to prepare the attacks for which he was arrested on Friday.
"The reasoning for this decision is to create a credible cover in case I am arrested in regards to the purchase and smuggling of explosives or components to explosives - fertiliser," the tract says.
At least 85 people died in the massacre of youngsters attending a Labour Party summer camp on Utoeya and seven more were killed in an earlier car bomb explosion which ripped through government buildings in Oslo.
"I will be labeled as the biggest (Nazi-) monster ever witnessed since WW2," the text's author writes, while discussing the preparation of his "martyrdom operation".
While the text is signed under the pseudonym "Andrew Berwick", the author explains the origins of his real name -- Anders Behring Breivik.
"My name, Breivik, can be dated back to even before the Viking era. Behring is a pre-Christian Germanic name which is derived from Behr, the Germanic word for Bear... Anders (Andreas) is the Scandinavian equivalent of... Andrew."
The text refers to the author's friends, their habits, girlfriends and sexual habits, as well as many of the mundane details of day-to-day life, including drinking expensive wine ahead of the attacks.
"I have written approximately half of the compendium myself. The rest is a compilation of works from several courageous individuals throughout the world. The content of the compendium truly belongs to everyone."
He writes about increased aggression because of taking body-building products, and includes question and answer sessions with himself.
"Q: Name one living person you would like to meet?
A: The Pope or Vladimir Putin. Putin seems like a fair and resolute leader worthy of respect. Im unsure at this point whether he has the potential to be our best friend or our worst enemy though."
"I'm an extremely patient and a very positively minded individual," the author writes in the text that includes a glossary and tips on farming.
But by July of this year, patience had run out and preparations were proceeding apace.
"Sunday July 17: Continued removing traces of the decor on the rental car. Washed twice with acetone then another round of degreasing. There are still significant traces but at this point I do not have time to take additional measures.
"I believe this will be my last entry. It is now Fri July 22nd, 12.51 Sincere regards, Andrew Berwick, Justiciar Knight Commander, Knights Templar Europe, Knights Templar Norway."
Behring Breivik's lawyer told Norwegian television on Saturday that he had admitted responsibility for the attacks.
"He explained that it was cruel but that he had to go through with these acts," lawyer Geir Lippestad said, adding that the attacks were "apparently planned over a long period of time".
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