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An undated image on Facebook shows the 32-year-old suspected attacker, whom local media identified as Anders Behring Breivik - Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.
OSLO—Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian man accused of carrying out one of the worst massacres in Europe since World War II, has taken responsibility for the rampage, telling his lawyer that the killings were "atrocious" but "necessary."
The Friday attacks, including the bombing of a government building in Oslo and a shooting spree at a political youth camp on a nearby island, left at least 93 people dead in what authorities describe as a deranged attempt to declare war on the forces of multiculturalism and pluralism that have taken hold in this small Scandinavian country.
Police on Sunday continued to follow leads that others were involved in the attacks and local media reported that authorities were searching a house in Oslo in connection with the case.
Norway's ruling, center-left Labor Party, which has long championed the benefits of immigration and multiculturalism, appeared to be the primary target of the attack.
Norway, a rural country of 4.6 million roughly the size of New Mexico, has little recent history of political extremism, much less violence, and the attacks are fueling concern across Europe that the anti-immigrant underswell that has swept the Continent in recent years could metastasize into violence, suddenly and unexpectedly.
Unlike other Scandinavian countries, including Sweden and Denmark, Norway doesn't have a mainstream far-right party. Mr. Breivik was once a member of Norway's conservative Progress Party, the country's second-largest political party after the Labor Party. The Progress Party, which sought to distance itself from Mr. Breivik, has taken a hard line on immigration in the past but is less extreme than the populist antiforeigner parties that have taken hold elsewhere in Scandinavia.
Mr. Breivik "has said that he believed the actions were atrocious, but that in his head they were necessary," Geir Lippestad, Mr. Breivik's lawyer, told independent TV2 news.
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