Norway officials: Bow-and-arrow attack appears act of terror

Norway’s domestic security agency says a bow-and-arrow attack that killed five people appears to have been an act of terrorism

KONGSBERG, Norway -- A Danish man suspected of killing five people with a bow and arrow and possibly other weapons while randomly shooting at strangers in a small Norwegian town appears to have committed an act of terrorism, authorities in Norway said Thursday.

The Wednesday night attack at a supermarket and other locations in downtown Kongsberg, a town of about 26,000 residents not far from Norway's capital, left the country stunned as police released some details, including that officers made contact with the 37-year-old suspect but he initially escaped.

“From what we know now, it is reasonably clear that some, probably everyone, was killed after the police were in contact with the perpetrator,” regional police chief Ole B. Saeverud said Thursday. The victims were four women and one man between the ages of 50 and 70. Two other people were injured.

Mass killings are rare in low-crime Norway, and the attack immediately drew comparisons with the country's worst peacetime slaughter a decade ago, when a right-wing domestic extremist killed 77 people with a bomb, a rifle and a pistol.