OSLO — Hours after a shooting early Saturday in Norway’s capital that killed two people and seriously wounded at least 10, the police said they were treating it as a terrorist attack.
The shooting happened near a popular gay club in downtown Oslo, hours before the city was scheduled to hold its annual Pride parade. The event’s organizers later said they had canceled the parade and other events connected to the city’s 10-day Pride festival at the suggestion of the police.
“We will soon be proud and visible again, but for now, for today, we will hold our Pride events in our homes,” Inger Kristin Haugsevje, the leader of Oslo Pride, said in a statement.
A male suspect was apprehended five minutes after the shooting was reported, the Oslo police said on Twitter. Christian Hatlo, a lawyer for the police, told reporters later Saturday that the man in custody was a 42-year-old Norwegian citizen who was originally from Iran, and who had a record of minor crimes.
Mr. Hatlo said the police had charged the suspect with murder, attempted murder and terrorism. He said they had reason to assume the attack was a hate crime because it had taken place outside London Pub, a center of gay nightlife in Oslo.
In addition to the 10 people who were seriously wounded, 11 others were lightly injured, some during a panicked rush to flee the scene, Mr. Hatlo said.
Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Store, described the shooting in a Facebook post as a “cruel and deeply shocking attack on innocent people.” The mayor of Oslo, Raymond Johansen, called it “gruesome.”
“Those who are hurt, and those who saw this, experienced things no one should experience,” Mr. Johansen wrote on Facebook. Know that we are here for you. Oslo stands with the queer community, in Oslo, Norway and the world.”
Shootings are exceedingly rare in Norway. Gun owners must be licensed and take safety classes, and a ban on semiautomatic weapons enacted by the Norwegian Parliament — a belated response to a 2011 attack by a far-right gunman that killed 77 people — took effect last year.
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