BEIRUT -- When the gunmen began to slaughter his family, 11-year-old Ali el-Sayed says he fell to the floor of his home, soaking his clothes with his brother's blood to fool the killers into thinking he was already dead.

The Syrian boy tried to stop himself from trembling, even as the gunmen, with long beards and shaved heads, killed his parents and all four of his siblings, one by one.

The youngest to die was Ali's brother, 6-year-old Nader. His small body bore two bullet holes -- one in his head, another in his back. 

---

"I put my brother's blood all over me and acted like I was dead," Ali told The Associated Press over Skype on Wednesday, his raspy voice steady and matter-of-fact, five days after the killing spree that left him both an orphan and an only child.

NYT: US envoy fears Syria conflict will develop into sectarian war in Mideast

The AP contacted Ali through anti-regime activists in Houla who arranged for an interview with the child over Skype. Activists say he is one of the few survivors of a weekend massacre in the collection of poor farming villages and olive groves in Syria's central Homs province. More than 100 people were killed, many of them women and children who were shot or stabbed in their houses.

Almost all foreign journalists and observers banned from Syria so the boy's story cannot be independently verified. However, there is evidence to support Ali's version of events -- namely the pictures of 49 children shot or hacked to death in Houla on Friday. 

The Houla killings brought immediate, worldwide condemnation of President Bashar Assad, who has unleashed a violent crackdown on an uprising that began in March 2011. Activists say as many as 13,000 people have been killed since the revolt began. 

Inside Syria: War-torn Homs scarred by violence, riddled with fear

U.N. investigators and witnesses blame at least some of the Houla killings on shadowy gunmen known as "shabiha" who operate on behalf of Assad's government. 

Recruited from the ranks of Assad's Alawite religious community, the militiamen enable the government to distance itself from direct responsibility for the execution-style killings, torture and revenge attacks that have become hallmarks of the shabiha. In many ways, the shabiha are more terrifying than the army and security forces, whose tactics include shelling residential neighborhoods and firing on protesters. The swaggering gunmen are deployed specifically to brutalize and intimidate Assad's opponents. 

Activists who helped collect the dead in the aftermath of the Houla massacre described dismembered bodies in the streets, and row upon row of corpses shrouded in blankets. 

"When we arrived on the scene we started seeing the scale of the massacre," said Ahmad al-Qassem, a 35-year-old activist. "I saw a kid with his brains spilling out, another child who was no more than 1 year old who was stabbed in the head. The smell of death was overpowering." 

The regime denies any responsibility for the Houla killings, blaming them on terrorists. And even if the shabiha are responsible for the killings, there is no clear evidence that the regime directly ordered the massacre in a country spiraling toward civil war. 

US expels Syria diplomat over Houla massacre

As witness accounts begin to leak out, it remains to be seen what, exactly, prompted the massacre. Although the Syrian uprising has been among the deadliest of the Arab Spring, the killings in Houla stand out for their sheer brutality and ruthlessness. 

According to the U.N., which is investigating the attack, most of the victims were shot at close range, as were Ali's parents and siblings. The attackers appeared to be targeting the most vulnerable people, such as children and the elderly, to terrorize the population. 

In the wake of the attack, Western diplomats warned that Syria is nearing full-blown sectarian civil war that would be catastrophic for the entire Middle East,  and urged Russia to end its support for Assad and put pressure on him to stop the bloodshed.

Syrians shot while trying to cross border into Lebanon

With anti-Assad rebels urging international envoy Kofi Annan to declare his peace plan dead, freeing them from any commitment to the tattered truce, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday that the prospect of spiraling violence presented "terrible" danger.

"A civil war in a country that would be driven by sectarian divides ... could then morph into a proxy war in the region because, remember, you have Iran deeply embedded in Syria," Clinton said during a trip to Copenhagen where she urged Moscow to increase pressure on Assad. 

US student killed while filming violence in Syria

Russia, like China, has vetoed two Security Council resolutions calling for tougher action against Damascus, while stressing hopes that Annan's plan can spur a political solution. Washington called a reported shipment of Russian arms to Syria "reprehensible" although not illegal. 

"The Russians keep telling us they want to do everything they can to avoid a civil war because they believe that the violence would be catastrophic," Clinton said. 

"I think they are in effect propping up the regime at a time when we should be working on a political transition." 

Russia blames 'both sides' for Syria massacre

According to activists in and around Houla area, the massacre came after the army pounded the villages with artillery and clashed with local rebels following anti-regime protests. Several demonstrators were killed, and the rebels were forced to withdraw. The pro-regime gunmen later stormed in, doing the bulk of the killing. 

'Why did you take them?'
Syrian activist Maysara Hilaoui said he was at home when the massacre in Houla began. He said there were two waves of violence, one starting at 5 p.m. Friday and a second at 4 a.m. Saturday. 

"The shabiha took advantage of the withdrawal of rebel fighters," he said. "They started entering homes and killing the young as well as the old." 

Ali, the 11-year-old, said his mother began weeping the moment about 11 gunmen entered the family home in the middle of the night after arriving in a military armored vehicle and a bus. The men led Ali's father and oldest brother outside. 

"My mother started screaming 'Why did you take them? Why did you take them?'" Ali said. 

Soon afterward, he said, the gunmen killed Ali's entire family. 

As Ali huddled with his youngest siblings, a man in civilian clothes took Ali's mother to the bedroom and shot her five times in the head and neck. 

"Then he left the bedroom. He used his flashlight to see in front of him," Ali said. "When he saw my sister Rasha, he shot her in the head while she was in the hallway." 

Inside Syria rebel stronghold: 'It was as if the city was on mute'

Ali had been hiding near his brothers Nader, 6, and Aden, 8. The gunmen shot both of them, killing them instantly. He then fired at Ali but missed. 

"I was terrified," Ali said, speaking from Houla, where relatives have taken him in. "My whole body was trembling." 

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Chinese activist: My nephew may be being tortured
• Will crisis-hit Ireland rebel against harsh remedy for ailing Europe?
• 'Very clear' signs of Iran sanitizing military site, Western diplomat says
• Porn actor wanted for murder over body parts in Canada mail
• Drinking beer at the London Olympics will cost you
• Tribesmen release two 2 US tourists kidnapped in Egypt
• Report: Hundreds detained in Tibet after self-immolations

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

Updated at 1:05 p.m. ET: The United States and a string of other nations expelled Syrian diplomats Tuesday, in response to a United Nations announcement that most of the 108 victims of violence near the Syrian town of Houla had been executed.

The State Department said it had decided to expel Charge d'Affaires Zuheir Jabbour from the U.S., an action mirrored by Australia, Canada, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Germany. The Syrian ambassador had previously been recalled, leaving the charge d’affaires the highest ranking official in Washington, D.C.

---

Images of bloodied, young bodies laid out in a shallow grave after Friday's onslaught triggered shock around the world and underlined the failure of a six-week-old U.N. cease-fire plan to stop the violence.

 

 

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights earlier said its monitors found that fewer than 20 of the victims died from artillery fire. It was first thought the majority of the deaths were caused by artillery fire.

Syrian authorities had blamed "terrorists" for the massacre, which is one of the worst carnages in the 14-month-old uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that has cost about 10,000 lives.

Clinton condemns Syria massacre: Assad's 'rule by murder' must end

The United States rejected Syria's claims that terrorists were responsible for the massacre.

"We hold the Syrian government responsible for this slaughter of innocent lives," a spokesman for State Department told NBC News in a statement. "We encourage all countries to condemn the actions of the Assad regime through similar action."

The U.S. did not cut off relations with Syria altogether, and did not oppose "many civil service members of the Syrian government who are working to improve their country," the statement added.

"Our view is that these are civil servants; these are technical staff; these are the same people who, if and when -- and there will come a when -- the Assad regime goes and we're into a transition that they will have to restart the relationship," Victoria Nuland, spokesperson for the State Department, said.

"We are not opposed to the low- and mid-level technical staff remaining.”

'Summarily executed' 
Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UNHCR, told journalists in Geneva that initial investigations suggest fewer than 20 of the victims in the village of Taldou, near Houla, were killed by artillery or tank fire.

"Most of the rest of the victims in Taldou," he told the BBC, "were summarily executed in two separate incidents."

Most of the victims were shot at close range. "At this point it looks like entire families were shot in their houses," Colville was quoted as saying by The Telegraph.

He said the conclusions of the U.N. monitors are corroborated by other sources, and that witnesses blamed pro-government militias for the attacks.

The findings came as UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan was meeting Assad in Damascus on Tuesday.

UN Security Council condemns Syria massacre that left more than 100 dead

The U.N. Security Council on Sunday unanimously condemned the Syrian government for heavy-weapons attacks on Houla.

"The Security Council condemned in the strongest possible terms the killings, confirmed by United Nations observers, of dozens of men, women and children and the wounding of hundreds more in the village of (Houla), near Homs, in attacks that involved a series of government artillery and tank shellings on a residential neighborhood," a non-binding statement said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded that those who carried out the killings be held accountable.

"The United States will work with the international community to intensify our pressure on Assad and his cronies, whose rule by murder and fear must come to an end," she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Can voters force candidates to compromise in Egypt run-off?
• 'War criminal': UK ex-PM Blair heckled while testifying
• Horror and death in former Syrian rebel stronghold
• Couple kept boy, 11, in coal cellar as punishment for raiding refrigerator
• Video: British woman may face death in Indonesia

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

 

A man identified as the older brother of one of the victims of Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik threw a shoe at him during his trial Friday, the first time the proceeding has been interrupted by a public outburst. 

"Go to hell, go to hell, you killed my brother," the man, who was seated in the second row of the public gallery, screamed as he threw the shoe at Breivik from a few yards away, newspaper VG reported on its website.  

---

The shoe missed Breivik but struck his co-defense lawyer, Vibeke Hein Baera, who was seated closest to the public gallery, during the presentation of an autopsy report. 

"Luckily, it was just a shoe," Hein Baera told the AFP news agency after the incident.

Norwegian media said the man was a brother of one of the victims of Breivik's rampage, but his name was not immediately available. He was removed from the courtroom by police. 

"Some spectators were uncomfortable. Some started crying. Many clapped their hands," Swedish journalist Bjoern Lindahl said, according to the Press Association news agency, which added that the incident contrasted with the usual "polite atmosphere" in the court.

The incident came during a week of harrowing testimony from survivors of Breivik's rampage across the small island of Utoeya last July, where the ruling Labor Party was holding a youth camp. He killed 69 people there, many of them teenagers. 

Breivik has listened calmly to the descriptions of his killings and shown hardly any emotion, except when hearing descriptions about how he was said to have let out "cries of joy" and laughed while shooting, which he has denied. 

Breivik has admitted the killings, but denies criminal responsibility. He says he was defending Norwegian ethnic purity from Muslim immigration and the multiculturalism backed by the Labor Party. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Bad neighbors for Team USA? Occupy camp axed
• WWII fighter plane found preserved in Sahara Desert
• Egypt's first TV presidential debate thrills viewers
• 88,000-mile voyage? Plastic card found after 33 years
• Hell-raising holy men: Boozy monks caught gambling
• Sources: Spy who uncovered underwear bomb plot is a Brit
• Video: Murder and corruption scandal rocks China
• Move over, Al Roker! Prince Charles becomes weatherman

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

OSLO, April 25 (Reuters) - Norwegians protesting against mass killer Anders Behring Breivik will take to the streets of Oslo on Thursday to sing a children’s songs that they're hoping he will just hate.

They plan to sing arm-in-arm a few blocks from the courthouse where Breivik is on trial for the killings of 77 people in a gun and bomb rampage last year.

---

"I grew up with this song and have sung it to my child," said Lill Hjoennevaag, one of the organizers of the demonstration.

"Everybody I know feels strongly about this song and we need to take it back," she told public broadcaster NRK.

Lillebjoern Nilsen's "Children of the Rainbow," a Norwegian rendition of American folk singer Pete Seeger's 1971 "My Rainbow Race," is a popular song in Norway.

"Breivik has used it as an example of brainwashing, but it is rather an example of the opposite," said Christine Bar, another organizer, who launched the event on Facebook.

"We think it represents diversity, and it stands for the community we have chosen to live in, and which Breivik and similar people want to tear down," she added.

Breivik, set off a car bomb in the capital Oslo, killing eight people, then gunned down 69 people, mostly teenagers, at a youth summer camp organized by the ruling Labor Party on July 22.

Also on Wednesday, the confessed mass killer slammed a psychiatric report that declared him insane as based on "evil fabrications" meant to portray him as irrational and unintelligent.

Norway's Breivik gives 'terrifying' testimony

"It is not me who is described in that report," the right-wing extremist, who admitted killing 77 people in bomb and shooting attacks on July 22, said in court.

A second psychiatric examination found Breivik sane. The five-judge panel trying Breivik on terror charges for the attacks will consider both reports.

Breivik admits to the bombing of Oslo's government district and subsequent shooting massacre at the Labor Party youth camp, claiming the attacks were "necessary" and that the victims had betrayed Norway by embracing immigration.

Images: Norway mourns after massacre

If found guilty, Breivik would face 21 years in prison, though he can be held longer if deemed a danger to society. If declared insane, he would be committed to compulsory psychiatric care.

After listening to testimony describing the horrific injuries of the bombing victims, Breivik showed no remorse, saying if anyone should apologize it was the governing Labor Party.

He said he had hoped they would change policy on immigration after his attacks.

"But instead they continue in the same direction, so the grounds for struggle are unfortunately even more relevant now than before July 22," Breivik said.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• 3 arrested as Germany cracks down on neo-Nazi extremists
• Rupert Murdoch grilled at UK phone-hacking inquiry
• South Korea retailers stop selling US beef in wake of California mad cow case
• Lawyer: Jailed Ukrainian ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko beaten, on hunger strike
• Pakistan tests nuclear-capable missile as arms race intensifies
• UK slides back into recession in first double dip since 1970s
• China wary as US, Philippines stage war games

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

 

An expert sociologist says the testimony of far-right mass killer Anders Breivik should not be curtailed because his “repellent” views and rambling speech will actually put people off extremism.

Professor Thomas Hylland Eriksen, who has been called as an expert witness in Breivik’s trial, said self-confessed killer’s beliefs about immigration were “widely shared” in an interview with British broadcaster ITN. 

---

In a scene unimaginable in many countries, Breivik this week got the chance to explain his fanatical views to the court and the world, unrepentant and dressed in a business suit. Prosecutors and lawyers for the families of his 77 victims even shook his hand.

The 33-year-old far-right militant gave a rambling hour-long address to the court on Tuesday, reading from a statement that essentially summarized the 1,500-page anti-Islamic manifesto he posted online before his bomb-and-shooting rampage nine months ago.

"The attacks on July 22 were a preventive strike. I acted in self-defense on behalf of my people, my city, my country," Breivik declared, demanding to be found innocent of terror and murder charges. "I would have done it again."

Breivik: I was motivated by goodness and 'would have done it again'

Breivik has five days to explain why he detonated a bomb outside government headquarters in Oslo, killing eight people, then drove to a nearby resort island, where he massacred 69 others, mostly teens, at a summer youth camp run by the governing Labor Party.

Breivik, who has admitted carrying out the grisly acts, boasted they were the most "spectacular" by a nationalist militant since World War II.

Breivik’s speech, which angered victims’ family members who were present, was not broadcast on television because of a court order preventing live feeds during the killer's testimony.

However, Professor Eriksen told ITN Breivik's speech was more likely to harm his cause.

Eriksen said:

"Parts of his world view are clearly widely shared, not by a majority but by substantial groups who feel globalization is not going their way, that their country is being invaded by a foreign alien enemy Muslims and feel that they are being ruled by spineless multiculturalists who don't see the dangers of Islam.

"I've been of two minds myself but I've reached a conclusion that it's a good thing to give him this platform because he doesn't appear credible, he's not very charismatic - he does't have ... the appeal that would attract people so I think he works more like a repellent, a mosquito repellent against right-wing extremism because people who see him realize how bad it would get if they are attracted to these crazy notions of purity of race."

On Monday, Norwegian prosecutors and even lawyers representing the families of victims shook Breivik's hand as the trial opened, raising some eyebrows. Prosecutors shaking hands with defendants would be a rare sight in the U.S., as well as in neighboring Sweden and other Nordic nations.

"That was a bit strange," said John Christian Elden, who represents some survivors but is not participating in the trial.

Breivik had asked to wear a uniform in court in pretrial hearings but was rebuffed, and he appeared at the trial in a business suit and tie, his thinning hair neatly combed.

"We don't have orange jumpsuits and that kind of thing in Norway," his lawyer Geir Lippestad said. "This is a completely normal way to dress in a Norwegian court, even in a serious criminal matter."

'Childishly defiant'
On Wednesday Breivik  told the court he had been inspired by Serbian nationalism.

Anders Breivik to Norway court: I killed 77 people but am not guilty

Asked how he had changed from a teenage vandal on Oslo's prosperous west side to a methodical killer, he said he helped found a militant group called the "Knights Templar" in 2001 but refused to give any details to back up the claim. 

The original Knights Templar were a medieval brotherhood of European knights that pursued anti-Islamic crusades. 

Breivik deflected five straight questions about supposed allies and repeatedly tried to tell prosecutors how to phrase themselves. He became visibly irritated and swiveled a pen in his hand. 

Breivik's trial, to last 10 weeks, turns on the question of his sanity and thus whether he can be jailed. He has said that an insanity ruling would be "worse than death." 

Group blasts Marine Corps for reviving 'Crusaders' name and symbols

He came off as "childishly defiant," Tore Sinding Bekkedal, a survivor of the island massacre, said during a break on Wednesday. "He's trying to steer the proceedings and failing." 

If found mentally sane — the key issue to be decided in the trial — Breivik could face a maximum 21-year prison sentence or an alternate custody arrangement that would keep him locked up as long as he is considered a menace to society.

If declared insane he would be committed to psychiatric care for as long as he's considered ill.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• US warns of possible attacks on Westerners in Nigeria
• Afghan schoolgirls poisoned in anti-education attack
• Spanish king 'very sorry' for elephant-hunting vacation
• Scandal sends China's netizens into a feeding frenzy
• Norway mass killer Anders Breivik: I 'would do it all again'
• Japanese island man lives as naked hermit
• Microsoft Africa chairman named interim leader of Mali

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

Self-confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik told his trial in Norway Tuesday that he was motivated by "goodness, not evil" and said, "I would have done it again."

On the second day of his trial, he boasted about last July's massacre in a pre-pepared statement to court, saying:  "I have carried out the most sophisticated and spectacular political attack committed in Europe since the Second World War."

---

Breivik, 33, has said he acted to protect his country by setting off a car bomb that killed eight people at government headquarters in Oslo last July, then killing another 69 people in a shooting spree at a youth summer camp organized by the ruling Labor Party.

He has pleaded not guilty, saying he acted in defense of Norway against multiculturalism.

The trial will turn on whether Breivik is found guilty or insane.

While he risks being kept behind bars for the rest of his life, the high school dropout has said being labeled insane would be a "fate worse than death."

Breivik spoke for longer than the 30 minutes allotted for his 13-page statement, and was asked to finish by the judge. The statement is the start of an expected five days of testimony from Breivik before other witnesses are called.

Breivik insisted he should continue, telling the judge, "I never asked for 5 days, I just want 1 hour to explain myself," Sky News journalist Trygve Sorvaag reported on Twitter.

Breivik said the aim of the massacre was to end "multicultural drift", and set out his views on Muslims and sharia law. A court order prohibited broadcasters from showing pictures from inside the court while Breivik was speaking.

"People will understand me one day and see that multiculturism has failed," he said. "If I am right, how can what I did be illegal?"

"They (Norwegians) risk being a minority in their own capital in their own country in the future," he added.

Reporters inside the court described Breivik as "rambling", and said the court - in particular, relatives of the victims - grew impatient with the speech.

BBC reporter Matthew Price posted a picture of Breivik in the courtroom on Twitter after his speech had finished.

Earlier Tuesday, one of the lay judges hearing the case was dismissed after it emerged he had posted a comment on a Facebook page saying Breivik should face the death penalty.

Anders Breivik to Norway court: I killed 77 people but am not guilty

Shortly after the killings, Thomas Indrebø posted "the death penalty is the only just outcome of this case."

Breivik's defense lawyer said Indrebø should be dismissed from the case because of the remark, and it was later announced he would be replaced by a reserve lay judge.

The trial began on Monday, with two professional judges, as well as three lay judges chosen from civil society, presiding over the court.

The lay judge's dismissal is not expected to lead to any mistrial verdict.

Norway's VG newspaper reported the text of Indrebø's posting, according to a translation posted on The Telegraph news website.

"The death penalty is the only just sentence in this case!!!!!!!!!!" read the message. The Telegraph said the comment was posted below an article in VG only a day after Breivik killed 77 people with a bomb and gunfire.

A previous version of the story quoted Breivik as saying he "would do it all again," rather than "I would have done it again," based on a translation by Sky News.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Sources: Briton killed after threat to expose Chinese leader's wife

Tunisia still wants sun lovers, new Islamist government says

Sources: Briton killed after threat to expose Chinese leader's wife

Elite Secret Service agents among those suspended

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

Updated at 12:25 p.m. ET: Militant Anders Behring Breivik admitted he killed 77 people in a massacre last July, but said he was pleading not guilty on the first day of a trial that threatens to turn into a "circus" showcasing his anti-Islamic views.

As he arrived in court - the early part of the session was broadcast on television - Breivik gave a salute, raising his arm with his fist clenched.

---

The 33-year-old said: "I do not recognize the Norwegian courts. You have received your mandate from political parties which support multiculturalism. I do not acknowledge the authority of the court."

The trial will turn on whether Breivik is found guilty or insane.  If sane, he faces up to 21 years in prison; if deemed criminally insane, he would be committed to psychiatric care.

Shed tears
Listening impassively for hours as prosecutors read out an indictment detailing how he massacred teenagers trapped on a island resort outside Oslo, he only shed tears when the court later showed one of his propaganda videos.

"I acknowledge the acts but not criminal guilt as I claim self defence," he added, seated in front of a bullet-proof glass wall.

Occasionally suppressing a yawn, cracking his knuckles and sipping water, he stared down at the indictment papers, following without visible emotion the list of his killings as the prosecutor read out each one. Some details were so graphic that Norwegian television bleeped out descriptions of the massacres.

Breivik shot most of his victims several times, often using the first shot to take down his target then following up with a shot to the head. His youngest victim was 14. He later surrendered as "commander of the Norwegian resistance movement".

Prosecutors played a recording of an emergency call made by one of the summer campers hiding in the bathroom of a cafe.

"There's shooting all the time, I've seen many injured. He's inside!" Renate Taarnes screamed, as 13 people in the cafe were shot dead. "He's coming ... he's coming," she said as shots could be heard in the background.

But Breivik only became tearful while watching a movie of still pictures accompanied by text of his vision of evils of "multiculturalism" and "Islamic demographic warfare".

"I think he feels sorry for himself," said Mette Yvonne Larsen, one of the lawyers representing victims. "His project didn't work out, that's why he's crying. He's not crying for the victims ... he's crying over his extremely childish film."

The trial is scheduled to last 10 weeks and has raised fears that it could reopen wounds in Norway, a country that sees itself as a tolerant and peaceful society.

PhotoBlog: Anders Breivik in court

The "lone wolf" killer intends to say he was defending Norway against multiculturalism and Islam. He says his attacks were intended to punish "traitors" whose pro-immigration policies were adulterating Norwegian blood.

More than 200 people sat in the specially built courtroom while about 700 attack survivors and family members of victims watched on closed-circuit video around the country.

"It will be a tough time for many," survivor Vegard Groeslie Wennesland, 28, said outside the courtroom. "Last time I saw him in person he was shooting my friends."

Report: Threat from anti-jihadist extremists grows

Last July 22, Breivek set off a bomb in the centre of Oslo before heading to the youth camp on Utoeya, an island in a lake 25 miles outside the capital, gunning down his victims while police took more than an hour to get to the massacre site in the chaos that followed the bomb blast.

Disguised as a police officer, Breivik managed to lure some of his victims out of hiding, saying help had arrived. Other victims jumped into the lake, where he shot them in the water.

Prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh spoke of the "panic and mortal fear in children, youths and adults" trapped on the island.

While video footage of the Oslo bomb blast was played to the court, victims and their families cried as but Breivik smiled on several occasions.

Prosecutors painted an image of a Breivik obsessed with the "World of Warcraft" computer game, prompting the judge to ask whether the game was violent. Breivik broke into a smile when the image of his online character was displayed.

An initial psychiatric evaluation concluded that Breivik was criminally insane while a second, completed in the past week, found no evidence of psychosis. Resolving this conflict could be the five-judge panel's major decision.

If found guilty and sane, Breivik faces a maximum 21-year sentence but could be held indefinitely if he is considered a continuing danger. If declared insane, he would be held in a psychiatric institution indefinitely with periodic reviews.

Meanwhile he has made clear he intends to make use of the trial to air his views when he testifies next week.

 "Your arrest will mark the initiation of the propaganda phase," he wrote in a manual for future attackers, part of a 1,500-page manifesto he posted online, according to Reuters. "Your trial offers you a stage to the world."

In a recent letter seen by Norwegian newspaper VG, Breivik added: "The court case looks like it will be a circus ... it is an absolutely unique opportunity to explain the idea of (the manifesto) to the world."

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

An attorney for Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who has been charged with killing 17 Afghan civilians in two villages, said Friday that the defense team is “facing an almost complete information blackout from the government,” which is having a “devastating effect” on their investigation.

Bales, a 38-year-old father of two, is accused of creeping into the villages at night on March 11 and attacking the villagers. The Army has charged him with 17 counts of murder, six counts of attempted murder and six counts of assault. Nine children, four men and four women, were slain.

“We are facing an almost complete information blackout from the government which is having a devastating effect on our ability to investigate the charges preferred against our client,” his civilian attorney, John Henry Browne, said in a statement. 

---

Maj. Chris Ophardt, a spokesman for 1st Corps, Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington, said the investigation was ongoing.

“The prosecution will provide the defense with evidence in accordance with the Rules for Courts-Martial and the Military Rules of Evidence. Within these guidelines the prosecution is and has been communicating with the defense,” he said in an e-mail. 

Browne, who is in Seattle, was speaking about members of the defense team in Afghanistan. He said they had tried to interview injured civilians being treated at Kandahar Hospital but were denied access and told to coordinate with prosecutors. He said that the following day, the prosecution team interviewed the wounded, with defense counsel only later learning that they had been released from hospital and there was no contact information for them.

“These witnesses are now who knows where … people just disappear into the countryside in Afghanistan,” he said later Friday at a press conference. “They (prosecutors) actually promised us that if we sent people to Afghanistan … that they would cooperate and make witnesses available for us, and they obviously violated that promise.”

Browne also said in the statement that his team was denied access to medical records of the wounded, making it “even more impossible” to locate them, and that the prosecution was “withholding the entire investigative file from the defense team.”

Afghan massacre: Sgt Bales case echoes loudly for ex-soldiers on hotline for vets

 The Army doesn’t have any requirement to provide evidence to the defense at this point, according to military rules governing courts-martial. The next stage of the legal process is the Article 32 hearing, akin to a civilian grand jury, and which is “supposed to be a discovery tool for the defense,” Michael Navarre, an adviser at the National Institute of Military Justice and a former Navy prosecutor and defense counsel, told msnbc.com.

In general, most military prosecutors are cooperating with the defense and will provide some information -- though not everything -- prior to the Article 32 hearing to ensure it goes smoothly, he added, noting that some evidence may even be discovered after that proceeding.

“As a defense counsel, one of your jobs is to … build a public record as to what the government’s doing during the course of their investigation and also to some degree build sympathy for your client,” he said. “Given the seriousness and the gravity of the charges against his client, I would say it’s not uncommon to point out that the government isn’t being cooperative with your client in the investigation given the current public perception of his client.”

Browne said that though the defense team didn’t have the right to certain discovery materials until 30 days before the Article 32 hearing, he’d had better dealings in the past with prosecutors.

“We usually have the cooperation of prosecutors and they will give us information ahead of time just so we can be prepared and that’s just not happening in this case,” he said at the press conference. “My gut, from a defense lawyer’s standpoint, is when the prosecutors are not cooperating there’s a reason, and that reason usually is because they don’t really have much of case.”

“If they want cooperation from us, they better start cooperating more,” he later added.

How Staff Sgt. Bales' lawyers are fighting for his life

Bales, of Bellevue, Wash., is being held at a U.S. military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kan. He was on his fourth tour in a war zone since signing up for the Army after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. He had been in Iraq on his previous tours, during which he suffered a foot injury and a traumatic brain injury in a vehicle rollover, media reports say.

Browne said Bales was “holding up,” communicating with his wife, being treated well. He said Bales had seen a chaplain.

Some military law experts interviewed by msnbc.com said they expect the defense to mount a legal pincer attack, in which Bales’ attorneys may try to win acquittal by attacking the evidence but have a fallback position aimed at winning a lesser sentence than the death penalty -- which Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said could be sought in this case.

That fallback position could be diminished mental capacity, which they may attribute to his reported combat injuries and mental trauma.

For alleged Afghan shooter, death penalty unlikely

U.S. military officials told NBC News on Friday that the Army was preparing to conduct a psychological exam of Bales. The exam, known as the “706 Board,” is considered routine in such cases and will include a team of psychiatrists.

It's likely Bales would remain at Fort Leavenworth and the board doctors would travel to him, though a final decision has not been made.

NBC’s Chief Pentagon Correspondent Jim Miklaszewski and news producers Karen Lucht and Courtney Kube contributed to this report.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Sanford mayor: Police resisted release of 911 tapes
• Lights on or off? Earth Hour faces new challenger
• Mom, 29, dies in agony in jail after being booted by ER
• 2 studies tie pesticide to bee population crashes
• Spike Lee apologizes, will pay Sanford couple over tweet
• Vt. teacher's killing may have been 'sexually motivated'

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook

FORWARD OPERATING BASE MASUM GHAR, Afghanistan -- In a natural amphitheatre high among the jagged grey peaks of Afghanistan's Panjwai district, the shock of a village shooting rampage is still settling over U.S. soldiers who served with accused gunman Robert Bales.

The soldiers of Tacoma-based 3/2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team were moving into areas inherited from Alaska-based troops, tracking their armored vehicles to memorize the mazy roads of southern province Kandahar, when more than a dozen people were shot dead in Belandai and Zangabad villages.

Bales' brothers in arms are perplexed and distraught by the March 11 slaughter, which has dragged U.S.-Afghan relations to new nadir, prompting President Hamid Karzai to demand a pullback of NATO forces from Afghan communities.

---

"We are all talking about Sergeant Bales. I talk with some of the soldiers who served with him and they are all surprised. It saddens the friends of his, because my understanding is it was totally out of character," 3/2 Brigade Chaplain Major Edward Choi told Reuters at the unit's headquarters at Forward Operating Base Masum Ghar.

Afghan massacre suspect's wife: 'He did not do this'

The U.S. military last week lodged 17 charges of premeditated murder against Bales, a four-tour veteran, ahead of what is expected to be a long trial. In theory at least, the death penalty is on the table.

Popular leader
Bales had been a popular leader, Choi said, making the massacre even more bewildering. Comrades reject reports his marriage had been in trouble ahead of an Afghan deployment he was reluctant to undertake.

"That is not the case," said Choi, shrugging in frustration. "People that knew him, that dealt with him personally, said he was a great NCO (non-commissioned officer), cared for soldiers, was tactically and operationally professional, loved his wife and kids."

Choi, whose small plywood chapel overlooks a wide river plain and brigade command fenced by concrete blast walls, said some of Bales' comrades had been stressed by moving into a dangerous area that birthed the Taliban, and where its one-eyed leader Mullah Mohammad Omar still has a home.

Three-hour firefight: Afghan militants attack NATO convoy

Choi said he had no doubt multiple deployments were taking a toll on some of the fighting men. New rules governing elite units like the one Bales was assigned to guard, and wandered from in darkness on the night of the killings, were likely.

"When I speak to some of my leaders, our concern is lack of oversight. There are conventional soldiers attached to special forces who are well trained, off on their own, very mature and growing beards and doing their own thing," he said.

"When you take a 19 or 20-year-old conventional soldier and put him into special operations, they might not be able to handle it."

Captain Janel Schlaudecker, a combat stress counsellor for U.S. soldiers in Panjwai, including Bales' unit, said while there was no explanation for what led to the massacres, she had not noticed an impact on the wider stress levels of Bales' brigade, even among the far-flung infantry units.

"It's so hard to judge how they would respond to this. But they are used to going out there and eating next to nothing, if anything," Schlaudecker said.

"They are used to being under a lot more pressure and not having a lot of sleep. They are wired completely differently. They are lot more resilient."

PTSD: Having the courage to ask for help

Tensions over the incident are still high in Panjwai, an insurgent hotbed west of Kandahar city, and the scene of some of the war's fiercest battles. Scores of Canadian soldiers were killed there before the Americans took over in mid-2011.

U.S. authorities have given the victims' families cash compensation of around $50,000 for each person killed, but at a meeting with district elders this week, U.S. officers and advisers were confronted by angry Afghans demanding to know why more was not done to prevent such an atrocity.

"Local people are very angry. I get hundreds of calls from people who want this soldier tried here, in Afghanistan," said Panjwai radio journalist Abdul Karim, who also runs a curio shop from a shipping container, used by U.S. troops.

Fighting season
Some soldiers worry the massacre will undo hard-won gains over the past year, when insurgent attacks fell 40 percent, and turn sentiment against incoming units of Bales' 3/2 Strykers ahead of the summer fighting months.

The 2012 fighting season is the last which will be fought by NATO in surge-level numbers, as the end-2014 deadline for the exit of most foreign combat troops approaches.

US orders more security for troops in Afghanistan

Insurgents have already carried out small attacks as a bitter winter recedes, but U.S. commanders say this does not mean an emboldened Taliban have brought hostilities forward.

"I think the coming summer will be bad and the new guys are worried," said Staff Sergeant Robert Nelson, 37, a garrulous ex-Marine from Texas who runs the 'Mission One' base shop at Masum Ghar for the outgoing 1/25 Arctic Wolves, now packing to leave.

Colonel Todd Wood, the outgoing U.S. commander for the 25th Infantry Division, said patrols were brushing lightly over Belandai and Zangabad to avoid provoking more anger, but he did not think the massacre would make the fighting months worse.

"Right now it's probably still too early to tell," said Wood, a weathered, hyperactive Iraq veteran from Iowa.

"We've still got villagers that will point out IEDs (improvised explosive devices), we've still got villagers out there that will warn us of a possible attack ... that hasn't changed," he said.

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• 'Global March to Jerusalem': Israel's borders on high alert as protests loom
• Gang-raped, strangled, set on fire: Teen dies in Ukraine hospital
• Was Jewish school gunman linked to French spies?
• Three-hour firefight: Afghan militants ambush NATO convoy
• Global smartphone booms poses huge fraud risk, expert says
• US: North Korea using hackers; food aid suspended over rocket
• US orders more security for troops in Afghanistan

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Updated at 11 a.m. ET: KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- The United States paid close to $50,000 in compensation for each Afghan killed in the shooting spree attributed to a U.S. soldier in southern Afghanistan, a U.S. official told NBC News on Sunday.

The official, who asked not to be named, would not say exactly how much was paid to the families, but added the amount was close to the $50,000 reported by Afghan officials.

"The amount reflects the extraordinarily devastating nature of the incident," he said.

---

Average annual income in Afghanistan is $425, according to the BBC.

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales is accused of sneaking out of his base before dawn on March 11 then creeping into the houses of two nearby villages and opening fire on sleeping families within. The U.S. military has charged Bales with 17 murders.

Bales charged with 17 counts of murder in Afghanistan massacre

The 38-year-old soldier is accused of using his 9mm pistol and M-4 rifle, which was outfitted with a grenade launcher, to kill four men, four women, two boys and seven girls, then burning some of the bodies.

The Associated Press earlier reported that the families of the dead received $50,000 for each person killed on Saturday at the governor's office, citing Kandahar provincial council member Agha Lalai.

Agha Lalai told the AP that each wounded person has received $11,000 and that they were told the money was from U.S. President Barack Obama. Community elder Jan Agha has confirmed the same figures.

US officials: Soldier split Afghan massacre in two

The American official who handed over the money said it was not compensation, but the U.S. government offering to help the victims and their families, Kandahar provincial council member Haji Nyamat Khan said.

But a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, Col. Gary Kolb, said the money was compensation.

NBC's Atia Abawi, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• North Korea moves long-range rocket to launch site, South says
• Obama calls Korean DMZ: 'Freedom's frontier'
• Bales charged with 17 counts of murder in Afghanistan massacre
• Iranian arms used against Syria protesters, officials say
• China struggles to contain wave of defiance in Tibet
• Landmark case: Nigerian villagers sue Shell over oil spills

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was charged Friday with 17 counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder, along with other charges, in connection with a shooting rampage in two southern Afghanistan villages that shocked Americans back home and further roiled U.S.-Afghan relations.

The charges come almost two weeks after the massacre in which Bales allegedly left his base in the early morning hours and shot Afghan civilians, including women and nine children, while they slept in their beds, then burned some of the bodies.

Military wives rally around Karilyn Bales

It was the worst allegation of civilian killings by an American and has severely strained U.S.-Afghan ties at a critical time in the decade-old war.

---

 Bales was read the charges on Friday at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where he has been held since being flown from Afghanistan last week, a U.S. official said.

For alleged Afghan shooter, death penalty unlikely

Bales' civilian attorney, John Henry Browne, said Friday without commenting on the specific charges that he believes the government will have a hard time proving its case and that at some stage in the prosecution his client's mental state will be an important issue.

Death toll in Afghanistan massacre climbs to 17

Col. Gary Kolb, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, says Bales was also charged Friday with six counts of attempted murder and six counts of assault.

The decision to charge him with premeditated murder suggests that prosecutors plan to argue that he consciously conceived the killings. A military legal official for U.S. forces in Afghanistan who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case, noted that premeditated murder is not something that has to have been contemplated for a long time.

 

“These are unsurprising charges, predictable charges. I would have thought there would have been a few more lesser charges because no prosecutor likes to lose his principal charge and see the individual walk so usually some lesser offenses are charged as well,” Gary Solis, former head of the Marine Corps’ Military Law Branch and current adjunct professor of law at Georgetown Law School, told msnbc.com.

“But what will really be significant is when the charges are referred to trial by the convening authority … because when they are referred, they will either be referred as capital or not. … If referred capital, that will change the complexion of the case.”

A senior U.S. official tells NBC News that Bales is likely to face lesser charges such as dereliction of duty and disobeying a lawful order.

The 38-year-old soldier and father of two, whose home is in Bonney Lake, Wash., faces trial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but it could be months before any public hearing.

Legal jurisdiction in the Bales case is expected to be switched Friday from U.S. Forces-Afghanistan in Kabul to Bales' home base of Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Wash., U.S. officials said.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said Bales could face the death penalty if he is convicted of murder, but it is unlikely. The U.S. military has not executed a service member since 1961. Legal experts say Bales could face a lengthy prison sentence if convicted.

The maximum punishment for a premeditated murder conviction is death, dishonorable discharge from the armed forces, reduction to the lowest enlisted grade and total forfeiture of pay and allowances, Kolb said. The mandatory minimum sentence is life imprisonment with the chance of parole.

How Staff Sgt. Bales' lawyers are fighting for his life

Legal experts have said the death penalty would be unlikely in the case. The military hasn't executed a service member since 1961 when an Army ammunition handler was hanged for raping an 11-year-old girl in Austria. None of the six men currently on death row at Fort Leavenworth was convicted for atrocities against foreign civilians.

“This is just the first step in what’s going to be a very long process and it still remains to be seen whether this is actually going to be a death penalty case or not,” Daniel Conway, a lawyer and former Marine staff sergeant who has been involved in battlefield investigations in Iraq and Afghanistan of alleged crimes by U.S. soldiers, told msnbc.com. “The basic idea here is that you can’t hold somebody in jail forever without charging them, so they’ve had to take this first step here.”

The charging document did not provide details about the killings, leaving the timeline unclear. The dead bodies were found in Balandi and Alkozai villages — one north and one south of the base.

Members of the Afghan delegation investigating the killings said one Afghan guard working from midnight to 2 a.m. saw a U.S. soldier return to the base around 1:30 a.m. Another Afghan soldier who replaced the first and worked until 4 a.m. said he saw a U.S. soldier leaving the base at 2:30 a.m. It's unknown whether the Afghan guards saw the same U.S. soldier. If the gunman acted alone, information from the Afghan guards would suggest that he returned to base in between the shooting sprees.

It also is not known whether the suspect used grenades, Kolb said. The grenade launcher attachment is added to the standard issue M-4 rifle for some soldiers but not all, he said. Bales was assigned to provide force protection at the base.

Msnbc.com's Miranda Leitsinger and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Students walk out in Trayvon Martin protest
• Foxhole atheists plan to rock the base at Fort Bragg
• Principal's decree: This is a 'no hugging school'
• Red Tape: Credit bureaus upsell ID theft victims
• 'Hell no, we won't glow,' nuclear protesters chant

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook