Updated: Fri Jul. 22 2011 12:07:21

CTV News.ca Staff

Police in Oslo now say that seven people have been confirmed dead in Friday afternoon's explosions at its government headquarters.

Previous reports said two had been killed and 15 injured.

Though Friday's bomb blast appears to target the prime minister's downtown office, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was not among those injured. He was working at home and not in the building.

Hours after the bombings, a man in a police uniform opened fire at a youth camp outside the capital. The man pulled out a weapon and started shooting people at the camp at Utoya, which is on an island just outside the capital, reports say. As many as six were killed or injured.

Norway's ruling Labor Party was holding its annual youth event at the camp, the party confirms. As many as 700 people were believed to be taking part and Prime Minister Stoltenberg had been due to attend.

Party spokesman Per Gunnar Dahl told The Associated Press that panicked youth tried to escape the island by swimming back to the mainland.

Acting Police Chief Sveinung Sponheim told broadcaster NRK that investigators suspect the bombing and shooting spree are related.

At the same time, the offices of the broadcaster TV2, which are near the prime minister's offices downtown, have been sealed off because of a suspicious package.

Norwegian State Secretary Kristian Amundsen told BBC that there are people trapped in the buildings hit by the blast. He declined to elaborate, saying: "I can't go into details."

Oslo police declined to speculate on who was behind the attacks.

"So far, police cannot say anything about the scope of the damage, aside from that there's been one or several explosions," a police statement read.

The blast left glass, paper and debris everywhere. Most of the windows in the 20-floor high-rise building were blown out, while the bottom floor appeared to be gutted.

Nearby buildings were also damaged and evacuated. Some of the buildings housed Norway's leading newspapers and NTB. The website of the NRK network showed images of a blackened car lying on its side amid the debris.

Ingunn Anderson, who works for NRK, says she was having a coffee with a colleague at downtown café when they heard the blat.

"All of a sudden, the building started shaking like crazy and we're hearing this big explosion," she told CTV News Channel from Oslo.

"We ran out into the street and saw a lot of chaos, with glass everywhere and people sitting with bandages, bleeding. There was a smell in the air like fire, smoke and fire."

The bombing was unusual for Norway. The country has been the target of threats over its involvement in conflicts in Afghanistan and Libya. But with two dead, this is thought to be the deadliest bombing in Oslo since the Second World War.

Two suspects are in jail awaiting charges over a homegrown terror plot linked to al Qaeda. As well, last week, terror charges were filed against an Iraqi-born cleric who allegedly threatened Norwegian politicians with death if he is deported.

The indictment alleged that Mullah Krekar -- the founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam -- made various threats in interviews with news media, including the U.S. network NBC.

Norway ordered Krekar deported in 2005 after declaring him a national security threat. The decision was suspended amid worries he would face execution or torture in Iraq.

At a news conference in June 2010, Krekar said that if he were deported to Iraq and killed, Norwegian officials would meet the same fate. He singled out former asylum policy minister Erna Solberg.

With reports from The Associated Press