15 years after the Utøya attacks, the far-right threat is growing

Fifteen years after the Utøya attacks, Norway commemorated the 77 people killed in Oslo and at the Workers’ Youth League summer camp, while the country’s security service warned that far-right terrorism is a greater threat today than it was in 2011. Memorial ceremonies were held on Wednesday, 22 July, in the rebuilt Government Quarter, at Oslo Cathedral and on Utøya.

How the Utøya attacks unfolded

At 3:26 pm on 22 July 2011, a car bomb exploded outside Høyblokka, the main building in Oslo’s Government Quarter (Regjeringskvartalet). The blast killed eight people, damaged several government buildings and destroyed the office of then Prime Minister (statsminister) Jens Stoltenberg, who was elsewhere at the time.

The far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik then travelled to Utøya, where around 500 people were attending the summer camp of the Workers’ Youth League (Arbeidernes ungdomsfylking, AUF), the youth organisation of the Labour Party (Arbeiderpartiet). Disguised as a police officer, he opened fire on the people gathered on the island.

He killed 69 people at Utøya, most of them teenagers and young adults. Across the two attacks, hundreds of people were physically or psychologically injured. Breivik was arrested on the island and, in 2012, sentenced to 21 years of preventive detention (forvaring), a term that can be extended for as long as a court considers him dangerous.

The attacks were not indiscriminate. The bombing targeted Norway’s Labour-led government, while the shooting targeted the young members of its political movement. Breivik’s ideology was based on anti-Muslim conspiracy theories and the claim that political elites were enabling the alleged replacement of Europe’s white population.

“Terror is never random. Terror has a motive, a target,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said during this year’s ceremony. He described 22 July as a deliberate attack on AUF, the Labour Party and the democratic values of equality, diversity and tolerance.

The memories are still part of everyday life

The 15th anniversary began with a ceremony in the Government Quarter, followed by a service at Oslo Cathedral and a commemoration on Utøya. King Harald and Queen Sonja attended the cathedral service, where Development Minister (utviklingsminister) Åsmund Aukrust, who survived the attack on the island as an AUF member, was among the speakers.

“The memories of the loss, the grief and what was taken from us are still with us,” said Ok Kyong Park-Bhasin of the National Support Group after 22 July. “For many, 22 July is not just a date in history, but part of everyday life.”

Former Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg also opened the notebook he used on the day of the attacks for the first time in 15 years. The pages contain the first information reaching the government, including casualty estimates that initially appeared much lower than the eventual death toll.

“For me, it is powerful to leaf through them,” Stoltenberg told NRK. He said the notes were a reminder of how several hours passed before the authorities understood the full scale of the tragedy.

For younger Norwegians, however, 22 July is increasingly an event learned from other people rather than personally remembered. AUF leader and Utøya survivor Gaute Børstad Skjervø stressed the responsibility of witnesses and survivors to continue telling what happened.

“This generation inherits from us a responsibility never to forget, even without memories of its own,” Skjervø said.

A rebuilt Government Quarter becomes a place of memory

This year’s anniversary was the first to be held in the rebuilt Government Quarter, where government employees have returned after 15 years of reconstruction.

A new national memorial, Upholding (En opprettholdelse), was inaugurated on Sunday. Designed by Norwegian artist Matias Faldbakken, it consists of a large mosaic portraying a wading bird, water and reeds, supported by a visible steel structure. Around 300,000 hand-cut stones were used to create the image, while the names of the 77 victims are engraved on a steel beam below it.

The structure is intended to evoke the long process of rebuilding the centre of Oslo after the bombing. Its mosaic also connects the Government Quarter with the landscape of Utøya, where the portrayed bird can be found.

The new 22 July Centre (22. juli-senteret) also opened to the public on the anniversary. Its permanent exhibition reconstructs the attacks through personal accounts, objects belonging to victims and survivors, police evidence and previously unseen material.

Some relatives have questioned the decision to display objects connected to the terrorist, including the false police uniform and identification he used on Utøya. The centre argues that they document how he gained the trust of people on the island and help explain how the attack was carried out.

A second exhibition, Radicalisation, was developed with contributions from young people who had themselves entered far-right environments. Its purpose is to examine how fear, conspiracy theories, dehumanisation and a search for belonging can gradually make extremist violence appear legitimate.

The far-right threat is greater than in 2011

The Norwegian Police Security Service (Politiets sikkerhetstjeneste, PST) says that the threat from far-right extremism is now greater than it was at the time of the attacks.

In a special assessment published before the anniversary, PST said Breivik’s actions and ideology are contributing to the radicalisation of new far-right actors. His attack is an inspiration in the majority of the service’s Norwegian far-right cases, and many of those cases involve direct support for the violence of 22 July.

The security service is particularly concerned about minors who were born after 2011 and have no personal memory of the consequences of the attack. In digital communities, previous terrorists are celebrated through propaganda, memes, humour and references to video games and popular culture. Violent fascination can combine with far-right ideas even when a person does not initially have a coherent political ideology.

PST’s 2026 National Threat Assessment says minors were involved in nearly half of all completed or foiled far-right attacks in Western countries in 2025, compared with around 20 percent in previous years. Most of the people identified by the service in violent online forums are underage boys and young men.

The assessment also notes that vulnerability, isolation, mental health difficulties and a search for community may influence radicalisation, without being direct causes of it. Digital platforms can offer recognition and belonging before introducing users to increasingly violent material and extremist conspiracy theories.

PST considers it possible that far-right extremists will attempt to carry out a terrorist attack in Norway during 2026. The warning is particularly stark on an anniversary that was once expected to mark the beginning of a broader rejection of extremist hatred.

“Many of us thought that 22 July was a wake-up call to stop this. But it has not been,” Støre told Dagbladet.

Instead, he said, algorithms have strengthened polarising messages and online communities that spread and normalise conspiracy theories.

Fifteen years after the attacks, Norway has rebuilt the places that were destroyed. The harder task is ensuring that the ideology behind the violence is neither forgotten nor allowed to find a new generation of followers.