The Norway chief of police Oeystein Maeland has quit following a report which found that police could have prevented all or part of the attacks carried out by Anders Breivik.

A total of 77 people died when right-wing extremist Breivik set off a bomb and then opened fire on a youth political camp last summer.

An independent report into the police response to the attacks was published earlier this week.

It criticised the slow and disorganised handling of the incident.

The government commission said intelligence services could have learned about his plans months before the attack.

It also believes the government building he bombed should have been better protected and he should have been stopped before he gunned down dozens of victims on a near-by island.

Breivik first detonated a fertilizer car bomb outside government headquarters in Oslo killing 8 people last July.

He then travelled to the summer camp of the ruling Labour Party on Utoeya Island where he gunned down 69 victims unimpeded.

Authorities had become aware of his suspicious activities months before when he purchased items that could be used to make bombs.

But the commission said intelligence service failures meant he was not put on a watch list.

The government building should have been much better protected as it had been identified as a security risk years before.

However government squabbling over minor details of the security measures needed meant little was done.

It says the incident revealed ‘serious shortfalls in society’s emergency preparedness and ability to avert threats’.

The Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said he took ultimate responsibility for the failures after the report was published.

Mr. Breivik will be sentenced on August 24th.