Hi, I'm from Norway, and I've been doing pretty much nothing except following this story today, so I'll tell you what I know.
Explosives were planted at the camp, but were not detonated. All of the killings were done with guns. He's known to own a rifle, a handgun and a shotgun, but I've not seen reports on which of these he used, except for the handgun. Witnesses have also said that they saw an automatic weapon.
I'll just give a brief description of the situation for those who don't know, and perhaps to shed some light on why he was able to carry it out on such a large scale.
The people at the camp were almost exclusively teenagers or very young adults. The perpetrator came disguised as a police officer, using the explosion in Oslo as an excuse to perform a routine security procedure. It should also be stated that most people in Norway do not own guns, and certainly one would not bring one to a summer camp. The act of murder, and even violent crime, is incredibly low; people are not used to it, and do not expect it. It is also important to understand that this was a
tiny, tiny island, used almost exclusively for camp activities. There were not many places to run. He is not known to have any military training, except for the mandatory 1 year military service that is mandatory (though fairly easy to get out of if you really want to) in Norway. I've read that he enjoyed hunting, but strangely only on English-speaking news sites, so I cannot vouch for its veracity.
He was motivated by an extreme right-wing nationalistic ideology. More specifically, he is said to be an anti-internationalist. Norway's current government is liberal, and the youth political camp he attacked was organized by The Norwegian Labor Party (
Arbeiderpartiet; AP for short.)
The eye-witness testimonies that have been released thus far are almost unbelievable. He is said to have acted in a very calm and composed manner, showing no mercy. At one point he was situated on top of a cliff, firing at people who had thrown themselves into the ocean, attempting to swim away from the island. People were running over corpses and hiding desperately under rocks, seaside caverns and so forth.
It goes without saying that this is an unprecedented event in Norwegian history, but this will also be, if I'm not mistaken, the largest killing spree by any individual in modern history. And that's without accounting for the fact that the number will probably rise through the night as the waters are searched for corpses. This cowardly butchering of innocent youngsters will go down in history.
Lastly, I have some personal information about the shooter, if anyone for some reason want to know. He plays World of Warcraft, likes classical music. He also started his own ecological farm a couple of years ago, and it is suspected that he used this business as a way to get his hands on high quantities of fertilizers (I'm not sure if this is the correct term in English) which he might have used to assemble the explosives. Lastly, he admired Winston Churchill and Max Manus. (The latter is a Norwegian war hero famous for his resistance and sabotage operations during World War II.) A friend of his has reported that he became a right-wing extremist in his late twenties. He is now 32. He was also seen in Oslo when the explosion went off, and the police see clear links between the two events. It is at this point unknown (or unreleased, at least) if he had assistance or acted alone.
If you got any questions, feel free to ask.