‘We still are facing an Islamist threat’

The deadly twin attacks carried out by a right-wing extremist should not overshadow the fact that Norway still faces a serious Islamist threat, the head of the populist right Progress Party said.

“All the debates that we had prior to July 22 will come back. All the challenges that Norway was facing and the challenges that the world was facing are still there. Al-Qaeda is still there,” insisted Siv Jensen in an interview at her office in Parliament.

“The new thing is that we have been in a horrible way reminded of the fact that terrorism can come in many different forms, with different rhetoric behind it, with different crazy ideas behind it,” she said. In the five years since she took over as head of the anti-immigration party, Ms Jensen has repeatedly cautioned against the “rampant Islamisation” of Norway, and on Tuesday she stressed it was important to remain “aware of the threats that we had before July 22, because they are still there.”

Ms Jensen, 42, has however been careful to distance herself from the July 22 self-confessed killer, Anders Behring Breivik, who described his murderous rampage as part of a “crusade” against Islam and multiculturalism.

Mr Behring Breivik targeted the ruling Labour Party, which the 32-year-old blamed for its multicultural policies, first bombing government offices before going on an 80-minute shooting spree on the nearby island of Utoeya, where the party was holding a youth summer camp.