KONGSBERG, Norway, Oct 14, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - A man armed with a bow and
arrows killed five people and wounded two others in southeastern Norway on
Wednesday, police said, adding that they had arrested the suspect.

  The motive for the attack, which took place in several locations in the
town centre of Kongsberg, was unknown but police said terrorism could not yet
be ruled out.

  Police official Oyvind Aas confirmed that five people were killed. The two
wounded were in critical care units in hospital but their lives did not
appear to be in danger, he told a news conference.

  One of the wounded was an off-duty police officer who had been in a store,
one of several places attacked.

  "The man who committed this act has been arrested by the police and,
according to our information, there is only one person involved," Aas said.

  He added that "given how events unfolded, it is natural to assess whether
this is a terrorist attack", and stressed that "all possibilities were open".

  Police have identified the suspect only as a 37-year-old Danish citizen
living in Kongsberg, countering earlier television reports alleging the
attacker was a Norwegian man.

  "We decided to confirm this information because many rumours were
circulating on social networks about the perpetrator of the attack, some
[implicating] people who have no connection with these serious acts," said a
police statement issued Wednesday night.

  - 'Running for their lives' -

  A woman who witnessed some of the attack, Hansine, told TV2 she had heard a
disturbance, then saw a woman taking cover and "a man standing on the corner
with arrows in a quiver on his shoulder and a bow in his hand".

  "Afterwards, I saw people running for their lives. One of them was a woman
holding a child by the hand," she said.

  The suspect was taken to a police station in the nearby town of Drammen,
the force said.

  Police were informed of the attack at 6:13 pm (1613 GMT) in the town of
25,000 people around 80 kilometres (50 miles) west of the capital Oslo. The
suspect was arrested at 6:47 pm.

  "These events shake us," said Prime Minister Erna Solberg on her last day
in office.

  On Thursday, she will hand over the office to Jonas Gahr Store, whose
Labour Party won parliamentary elections.

  In Kongsberg, police blocked off the scene of the attack while urging the
public to stay at home.

  Television footage showed ambulances and armed police in the area. A
helicopter and bomb disposal team were also sent to the scene.

  Police in the Scandinavian country are not normally armed, but after the
attack, the National Police Directorate ordered that officers be armed
nationwide.

  Norway's intelligence service PST had been alerted, spokesman Martin
Bernsen told AFP.

  "It is all conjecture at the moment," he said when asked about the
possibility of a terrorist motive.

  - Arrow sticking in a wall -

  The website of public broadcaster NRK published an image sent by a witness
of a black arrow sticking out of a wall.

  In other pictures, what looked like competition-grade arrows could be seen
lying on the ground.

  Norway rarely experiences such violence, but 10 years ago far-right
extremist Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in the country's worst
massacre since World War II.

  Breivik first set off a bomb in Oslo next to the building that housed the
office of the prime minister, then went on a shooting spree at a summer camp
for left-wing youth on the island of Utoya.

  In another right-wing attack, self-proclaimed neo-Nazi Philip Manshaus
opened fire into a mosque on the outskirts of Oslo in August 2019 before
being overpowered by worshippers, with no one seriously injured.

  However, he had earlier shot dead his step-sister, who had been adopted
from China, in what prosecutors termed a "racist act".

  Several planned jihadist attacks have also been foiled by security
services.