The suspected gunman in yesterday’s attack at a gay bar in Norway has been named and pictured as Zaniar Matapour.

Two people were killed and more than 20 were wounded in the early hours of Saturday morning after an attack on a bar in Oslo during Pride celebrations.

Investigators said the suspect, identified as a 42-year-old Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, was arrested after opening fire at three locations in central Oslo.

The two victims were a man in his 50s and another man in his 60s.

Ten people were treated for serious injuries, but none of them was believed to be in life-threatening condition. Eleven others had minor injuries.

The Norwegian Police Security Service raised its terror alert level from ‘moderate’ to ‘extraordinary’ – the highest level – after the attack, which sent panicked revellers fleeing into the streets or trying to hide from the gunman.

The service’s acting chief Roger Berg said the attack was believed to be an ‘extreme Islamist terror act’ and said the suspect had a ‘long history of violence and threats’, as well as mental health issues.

He said the agency, known by its Norwegian acronym PST, first became aware of the suspect in 2015 and later grew concerned he had become radicalised and was part of an unspecified Islamist network.

Norwegian media named the suspect as Zaniar Matapour, an Oslo resident who arrived in Norway with his family from a Kurdish part of Iran in the 1990s.

The suspect’s defence lawyer, John Christian Elden, said his client had not talked to investigators, and he cautioned against speculation on the motive.

‘He has not given any reason. It is too early to conclude whether this is hate crime or terrorism,’ Mr Elden said.

Upon the advice of police, organisers cancelled a Pride parade that was set for Saturday as the highlight of a week-long festival.

Scores of people marched through the capital anyway, waving rainbow flags.

Police lawyer Christian Hatlo said it was too early to say whether the gunman specifically targeted members of the LGBTQ community.

‘We have to look closer at that, we don’t know yet,’ he said.

Mr Hatlo said the suspect was being held on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and terrorism, based on the number of people targeted at multiple locations.

‘Our overall assessment is that there are grounds to believe that he wanted to cause grave fear in the population,’ he said.

One of the shootings happened outside the London Pub, a bar popular with the city’s LGBTQ+ community, just hours before the parade was set to begin.

Civilians helped police to detain the shooter before he was taken into custody.

Olav Roenneberg, a journalist from Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, said he witnessed the shooting.

‘I saw a man arrive at the site with a bag. He picked up a weapon and started shooting,’ Mr Roenneberg told NRK.

‘First I thought it was an air gun. Then the glass of the bar next door was shattered and I understood I had to run for cover.’

Another witness, Marcus Nybakken, 46, said he saw a lot of people running and screaming and thought it was a fistfight.

‘But then I heard that it was a shooting and that there was someone shooting with a submachine gun,’ Mr Nybakken told Norwegian broadcaster TV2.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said in a Facebook post that ‘the shooting outside London Pub in Oslo tonight was a cruel and deeply shocking attack on innocent people’.

He said the shooting had caused fear and grief in the LGBTQ community.

‘We all stand by you,’ Mr Gahr Stoere wrote.

Christian Bredeli, who was at the London Pub, told Norwegian newspaper VG that he hid on the fourth floor with a group of about 10 people until he was told it was safe to come out.

‘Many were fearing for their lives,’ he said.

‘On our way out we saw several injured people, so we understood that something serious had happened.’

Mr Hatlo said police seized two weapons after the attack: a handgun and an automatic weapon, both of which he described as ‘not modern’ without giving details.

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