islamist connection suspected

Two people were killed and 21 injured when a gunman opened fire at a gay bar in Oslo, Norway, early Saturday morning, just hours before the city’s annual gay pride parade was set to begin.

“I saw a man arrive with a bag, he picked up a gun and started to shoot,” said Olav Roenneberg, a journalist with Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.

The alleged gunman, whose name has not been publicly released, is a 42-year-old Norwegian citizen of Iranian origin, Reuters reports. According to BBC, Oslo police are treating the mass shooting as an act of Islamist terrorism. “There is reason to think that this may be a hate crime,” police said. “We are investigating whether the Pride was a target in itself or whether there are other motives.”

The country’s intelligence service said the alleged shooter had a history of mental illness and had been known to them as a “suspected radicalized Islamist” since 2015.

The pride parade was canceled, but hundreds of people marched near the scene of the shooting later Saturday, chanting “https://theweek.com/mass-shootings/1014658/We”re here, we’re queer, we won’t disappear!”