Norway denounces terror in marking 5th anniversary of July 22 attacks

Norway's leaders on Friday denounced ongoing terrorism around the world as the Nordic country marked the fifth anniversary of the July 22 attacks in 2011 that killed 77 people.

"The world around us is uneasy. Terrorist attacks took place often. For just a week ago innocent people were killed in Nice," Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg said at a wreath-laying ceremony in front of the damaged government building which used to house the office of Norway's prime minister.

"Unfortunately, the list is long. Paris, Brussels, Istanbul, Beirut, Baghdad, Nairobi and Orlando were also hit by terrorism in the past year," Solberg said. "Today we send our thoughts also to those affected by these and other attacks."

"The terrorists' ideologies may be different, but they speak a common language... Weapons and violence are their principal tools," she said, adding that "terror can only be combated by us to offer a world that is better than what the terrorists want."

On July 22, 2011, far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik set off a car bomb just outside the high-rise building in the government administration complex in Norway's capital city Oslo and eight people were killed in the attack.

Later the day he killed 69 others, most of them teenagers, in a shooting rampage on Utoya Island, about 40 km northwest of Oslo, where members of the then ruling Labor Party's youth wing had gathered for their annual summer camp.

"Five years ago 77 people were killed. Five years ago that summer day was one of the darkest days in Norwegian history," Solberg said. "Time does not heal all wounds."

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who was Norway's prime minister when the attacks took place, said that it would take time but the fight against terrorism would be won, the NTB news agency reported.

"Terror must be fought with police, intelligence and military armaments. But terror must also be combated with values. It will take time but we are going to win because our values are superior," Stoltenberg said at a memorial service in the Oslo Cathedral.

In 2012, Breivik was sentenced to 21 years in prison at the Oslo District Court.

Norway's penal code does not have the death penalty or life prison, and the maximum prison term for Breivik's charges is 21 years. However, the term can be repeatedly extended by five years as long as he is considered a threat to society. Endit