March 15, 2019
In today's attacks on two mosques in New Zealand’s Christchurch city, 49 people lost their lives. The attacker was identified as an Australian extremist, who apparently livestreamed the assault that triggered the lockdown of the city.
After the attack, it emerged that the attacker’s gun mentioned slogans and certain names in English.
The writing in White colour mentioned the name of Anton Lundin Pettersson, who was a young, extremist student in Sweden. Petterson had killed two migrant children in 2015.
Another name was of Alexandre Bissonnette, who attacked a Canadian mosque in 2017 and murdered six Muslims.
Albanian military Commander Skanderbeg’s name was also written on the gun. He led a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century.
The other names included that of Antonio Bragadin and Charles Martel. Bragadin was a Venetian officer who violated an agreement, killing Turkish captives. Whereas, Martel was a Frank military leader who had defeated Spanish Muslims in the Battle of Tours.
Another thing mentioned on the gun was 1683, which refers to the Battle of Vienna. In this battle, the strategic city of Vienna was besieged by the Ottoman forces.