This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/04/norway-bus-hijacking

The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
Norway bus hijacking: three killed Norway bus hijacking: three killed
(about 4 hours later)
A knife-wielding man hijacked a bus in western Norway on Monday and killed three people on board, including the bus driver, police have said. A knife-wielding man hijacked a bus on Monday in rural Norway and killed the driver and two passengers before he was detained by authorities, officials said.
The suspect, described as a man in his 50s, was arrested after the attack in Sogn and Fjordane county. Police in Sogn and Fjordane county in western Norway gave few details about the suspect, but described him as a local resident originally from South Sudan. Police attorney Trine Erdal said the suspect was in his early 30s, not in his 50s as police had earlier reported.
Authorities first got reports of injuries in connection with a bus accident and rescuers from the fire department were the first to arrive on the scene, police spokesman Odd Arne Solvag said. He said the rescuers apprehended the suspect who was later arrested by police. The motive for the killings was not immediately clear.
Solvag said the suspect was not an ethnic Norwegian but could not give details on where he was from. The victims were two men in their 50s – the Norwegian bus driver and a Swedish passenger – and a 19-year-old Norwegian woman, Erdal said. All had been stabbed. There were no other passengers on the bus, she added.
The motive was not immediately clear. The suspect was initially apprehended by rescuers from the fire department who were the first to arrive on what they thought was an accident scene, police said. The suspect was later arrested by police and taken to a hospital for treatment of cuts but was not seriously injured, Norwegian news agency NTB reported.
Oslo police was getting ready to send an anti-terror unit to the scene aboard army helicopters but called off the deployment after receiving reports that the suspect had been arrested. Oslo police said they called off the deployment of an anti-terror unit after receiving reports that the suspect had been arrested.
"The situation was very unclear. They only told us that there was one man on the bus who had hijacked the bus and the driver was hurt. That was the first message we got here," Oslo police spokesman Andre Krakenes said. The same bus route was attacked in 2003 when an Ethiopian man stabbed to death a bus driver, NTB said. He had earlier that day killed a Congolese asylum seeker at a refugee centre.
Multiple killings are rare in Norway, though the country was shocked by its worst peacetime massacre two years ago when a rightwing extremist killed 77 people in a bomb and gun rampage. Multiple killings are rare in Norway, though the country was shocked by its worst peacetime massacre two years ago when Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian rightwing extremist, killed 77 people in a bomb and gun rampage.
Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.