Anders Behring Breivik: Profile of anti-Muslim hater in confessed Norway terrorist's manifesto
(CBS/AP) OSLO, Norway - He lifted words from the "Unabomber" and had fantasies of being a Knights Templar crusader who along with like-minded immigrant haters would seize power in Europe in a string of coups d'etat.
Pictures: Anders Behring Breivik
The writings of 32-year-old Norwegian national Anders Behring Breivik reveal an individual filled with hatred and self-aggrandizing dreams that possibly fueled the Oslo bombing and subsequent shooting rampage on a tranquil island retreat that killed at least 76 people.
In his 1,500-page manifesto, Breivik styles himself as a Christian conservative, patriot and nationalist. Along with his professed anti-Muslim views, he looks down on neo-Nazis as "underprivileged racist skinheads with a short temper."
On his Facebook page, he claimed to be a fan of classical music, Winston Churchill, the HBO prime time vampire soap opera "True Blood," and Showtime's serial killer drama "Dexter," according to The New York Daily News. He also claimed to be a fan of violent video games such as "Call of Duty," as well as the massive fantasy online game "World of Warcraft."
Police and Breivik's lawyer says he confessed to, but denied criminal responsibility for, Friday's bombing at government headquarters in Oslo and the mass shooting later that day at an island summer camp organized by the youth wing of the ruling Labor Party. At least 76 people were killed in the attacks, a number revised downward Wednesday by Norwegian authorities.
In Internet postings attributed to Breivik on Norwegian websites, he blamed Europe's left-wing parties for destroying the continent's Christian heritage by allowing mass immigration of Muslims. He said he came into contact with like-minded individuals across Europe, and together they formed a military order inspired by the Knights Templar crusaders. Their goal: to conquer Europe by 2083 in a string of coups. Norwegian police couldn't say whether the group existed.
Breivik wrote in his manifesto that he was a boy when his life's path began to turn. It was during the first Gulf War, when a Muslim friend cheered at reports of missile attacks against American forces.
"I was completely ignorant at the time and apolitical but his total lack of respect for my culture (and Western culture in general) actually sparked my interest and passion for it," the suspect in Norway's bombing and mass shooting wrote in his 1,500-page manifesto.
Breivik said it was the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 that "tipped the scales" for him because he sympathized with Serbia's crackdown on ethnic Albanian Muslims in Kosovo. A year later he said he realized that what he called the "Islamization of Europe" couldn't be stopped by peaceful means.
Complete coverage of the massacre in Norway
