Police say the Norwegian suspect in the two attacks that left at least 92 dead described himself as a fundamentalist Christian, as evidence emerged that he had flirted with the political far-right.
The 32-year-old, previously unknown to police, was arrested on Friday after a bomb blast in central Oslo killed seven people and a shooting rampage at a youth camp near the capital left at least 85 dead and scores wounded.
Local media have identified him as Anders Behring Breivik, whose picture on his Facebook page shows a man with longish blonde hair and piercing eyes.
The posting lists his religion as "fundamentalist Christian" and his political opinions lean "to the right", police said.
"He has certain political traits that lean to the right and are anti-Muslim but it is too early to say if that was the motive for his actions," police commissioner Sevinung Sponheim told public television NRK on Saturday.
In less than two hours on Friday the suspect allegedly carried out two attacks that appeared to target the ruling Labour Party.
The first strike was a bomb attack near the offices of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and those of other ministers in the heart of Oslo's government quarter.
In the second attack, about 40km from the capital, the suspect allegedly masqueraded as a police officer before opening fire on young people attending an island camp run for Labour's youth wing.
The head of the populist right-wing Progress Party (FrP), Siv Jensen, said on Saturday she was sorry to learn that the suspect had been a party member between 1999 and 2006 and for several years a leader in its youth movement.
"Those who knew the suspect when he was a member of the party say that he seemed like a modest person that seldom engaged himself in the political discussions," she said in a statement on the party's website.
He was also a member of a Swedish neo-Nazi Internet forum named Nordisk.
Nordisk hosts discussions rangingfrom white power music to political strategies to crush democracy, according to the Stockholm-based Expo foundation that monitors far-right activity.
Behring Breivik's Facebook profile says he is "conservative", "Christian", and "single", interested in hunting and video games such as World of Warcraft and Modern Warfare 2.
On an Internet debate site www.document.no in 2009, he expressed his frustrations with the Progress Party. In their desperate attempt to satisfy multicultural expectations and "the suicidal ideals of humanism, they have thrown the baby out with the bath water", he wrote.
He also said he was the manager of an organic farm, Breivik Geofarm, which would have given him access to raw materials that could be used to make explosives.
He reportedly bought six tonnes of fertiliser in May, an agriculture cooperative said.
Tax records, which are open to the public in Norway, show that the suspect listed no income for 2009 and modest sums in the previous years.
On his Twitter account, Behring Breivik posted only one message, dated July 17, in English adapted from a quote by British philosopher John Stuart Mill.
"One person with a belief is equal to a force of 100,000 who have only interests," he wrote.
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