In this photo taken by Vergard M. Aas, a Norwegian crime reporter who responded to the scene of a mass shooting on Utoya Island, Norway, victims lie near the shoreline approximately one hour after police say a man dressed as a police officer gunned down youths as they ran and even swam for their lives at a camp which was organized by the youth wing of the ruling Labor Party, Friday July 22, 2011. Police say the suspect in this shooting set off a fatal explosion hours earlier in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. (AP/Presse 3.0, Vegard M. Aas)
Trente på Utøya-scenario 22. juli (Aftenposten):
De fire dagene i forveien, og også den samme fredagen som angrepet ble utført, trente politiets beredskapstropp på en pågående terroraksjon som var tilnærmet lik den situasjonen som timer senere møtte de 22 polititjenestemennene i beredskapstroppen på Utøya.
Aftenposten får bekreftet fra sentrale kilder i ledelsen i Oslo-politiet at øvelsen ble avsluttet klokken 15 den samme fredagen.
Alle tjenestemennene fra beredskapstroppen som deltok i Regjeringskvartalet etter bilbomben og senere kom i land på Utøya og pågrep Anders Behring Breivik, hadde tidligere samme dag og i dagene i forveien deltatt i trening på et helt likt scenario.
Dermed rakk politiet så vidt å avslutte treningen før det de hadde trent på ble virkelighet.
Treningen skal etter det Aftenposten vet, ha gått rett inn i det som møtte politiet i Tyrifjorden den samme dagen: et mobilt terrorangrep hvor en eller flere gjerningspersoner kun har som mål å skyte flest mulig mennesker og så skyte politiet når de kommer.
– Det var veldig nærme fasiten. Tilfeldighetene ville det slik, sier en sentral politikilde, som ikke vil siteres med navn.
Politiet skal imidlertid ikke ha trent på et scenario med så mange ofre som det de møtte på Utøya.
Trained for Utøya scenario 22 July (Translation via Cryptogon):
Only hours before Anders Behring Breivik began shooting children on Utøya, the police emergency squad concluded an exercise where they practiced an almost identical situation.
…
Four days in advance, and also the same Friday the attack was carried out, the police special unit trained on an ongoing terror campaign that was approximately equal to the situation that hours later, met the 22 police officers within the emergency squad on Utøya.
…
As far as Aftenposten has been informed, the training transcended directly into what the policed then faced in the Tyrifjord that very day; a mobile terror attack, in which one or more perpetrators only goal was to shoot as many people as possible and then shoot the police when they arrived.
…
Only 26 minutes after the emergency squad’s training had concluded, the car bomb went off in the government quarter. The Emergency Squad arrived early on the scene.
At 3.30PM, the staff at the Oslo police learned about a shooting at Utøya. They put so much trust in the the message, that the emergency squad entered the cars, already positioned in the government quarter and cars that came from the police station at Grønland in Oslo.
On the way they had problems contacting the North Buskerud Police District, but at 6.02PM, six minutes before they arrived, they established contact and agreed to meet at Storøya.
Once there, seven people from the emergency squad and three police officers from Nordre Buskerud Police District boarded a 4.9 meter long rubber dinghy. This was so heavily loaded that it began taking in water. The police were assisted by a civilian boat and sailed towards Utøya.
