Police arrived late at scene of massacre

The police arrived at an island massacre about an hour and a half after a gunman first opened fire, slowed because they didn't have quick access to a helicopter and then couldn't find a boat to make their way to the scene just several hundred yards offshore. The assailant surrendered when the police finally reached him, but 82 people died before that.

Survivors of the shooting spree have described hiding and fleeing into the water to escape the gunman, but a police briefing yesterday detailed for the first time how long the terror lasted - and how long victims waited for help.

The shooting came on the heels of what the police told the Associated Press was an "Oklahoma city-type" bombing in Oslo's downtown: It targeted a government building, was allegedly perpetrated by a homegrown assailant and used the same mix of fertilizer and fuel that blew up a federal building in the U.S. in 1995.

In all, at least 92 people were killed in the twin attacks that police are blaming on the same man, 32-year-old Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik.

"He has confessed to the factual circumstances," Breivik's defense lawyer, Geir Lippestad, told public broadcaster NRK. Lippestad said his client had also made some comments about his motives.

"He's said some things about that, but I don't want to talk about it now," the lawyer told NRK.

Norwegian news agency NTB said the suspect wrote a 1,500-page manifesto before the attack in which he attacked multiculturalism and Muslim immigration. The manifesto also described how to acquire explosives and contained pictures of Breivik, NTB said. Oslo police declined to comment on the report.

A SWAT team was dispatched to the island more than 50 minutes after people vacationing at a campground said they heard shooting across the lake, according to police Chief Sveinung Sponheim. The drive to the lake took about 20 minutes, and once there, the team took another 20 minutes to find a boat.

Footage filmed from a helicopter that showed the gunman firing into the water added to the impression that the police were slow to the scene. They chose to drive, Sponheim said, because their helicopter wasn't on standby.

"There were problems with transport to Utoya," where the youth wing of Norway's Labor Party was holding a retreat, Sponheim said. "It was difficult to get a hold of boats."

At least 85 people were killed on the island, but the police said four or five people were still missing.

Divers have been searching the surrounding waters, and Sponheim said the missing may have drowned. The police earlier said there was still an unexploded device on the island, but it later turned out to be fake.

The attack followed the explosion of a bomb packed into a panel truck outside the building that houses the prime minister's office in Oslo, according to a police official

"It was some kind of Oklahoma City-type bomb," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the police hadn't released the information.

Seven people were killed, and the police said there are still body parts in the building. The Oslo University hospital said it has so far received 11 wounded from the bombing and 19 people from the camp shooting.

The police have charged Breivik under Norway's terror law. He will be arraigned tomorrow when a court decides whether the police can continue to hold him as the investigation continues.

Authorities have not given a motive for the attacks, but both were in areas connected to the Labor Party, which leads a coalition government.

Even the police confessed to not knowing much about the suspect, but details trickled out about him all day: He had ties to a right-leaning political party, he posted on Christian fundamentalist websites, and he rented a farm where the police found 9,000-11,000 pounds of fertilizer. (next page »)