OSLO - Norwegian police and security services could have prevented all or part of an attack by far-right militant Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a bombing and gun massacre last year, a government commission said on Monday.
Intelligence services could have learned about Breivik's plans months before the attack made him the worst mass killer in Norway's peacetime history, the commission's report said.
The government building he bombed should have been better protected and he should have been stopped before he gunned down dozens of victims, mostly teenagers, on an island as police struggled to find a working helicopter and a suitable boat.
"All in all, July 22 revealed serious shortfalls in society's emergency preparedness and ability to avert threats," the commission said.
"The challenges turned out to be ascribable to leadership and communication to a far greater extent than to the lack of response personnel," it said.