OSLO: A gunman armed with multiple weapons opened fire in a mosque near the Norwegian capital Oslo on Saturday, injuring one person before being overpowered by an elderly worshipper, police and witnesses said.

The head of the mosque described the assailant, who was later arrested by police, as white and said he was wearing a helmet and a uniform.

Police were alerted to the shooting at the al-Noor Islamic centre in the Oslo suburb of Baerum shortly after 4 pm.

“There has been a shooting episode inside the mosque,” Oslo police said on Twitter.

Police first reported that the victim had been shot, but later said one person had sustained “minor injuries” and that it was unclear if they were gunshot wounds.

Norway was the scene of one of the worst-ever attacks by a rightwing extremist in July 2011, when 77 people were killed by Anders Behring Breivik.

Police said there was no indication that more people than the “young man” arrested were involved in Saturday’s incident, but that they had no further information about the suspect.

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2019