Archived News Shows Links with Masjid Al-Noor Mosque and Radicalisation
It has emerged that Masjid Al-Noor, one of the mosques targeted in Friday’s shocking massacre has links to radicalisation.
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Archived news coverage has shown links between Masjid Al-Noor Mosque and radicalisation.
It has emerged that Masjid Al-Noor, one of the mosques targeted in Friday’s shocking massacre has links to radicalisation.
As reported by stuff.co.nz and Newshub in 2014, Daryl Jones a Sydney born man who trained with the Charlie Hebdo attackers and was killed by US drone strike against Yemeni rebels had been an attendee of Masjid Al-Noor for a number of years.
“Jones was killed alongside Australian Christopher Havard, whose parents said he was introduced to radical Islam at the Al-Noor mosque in Christchurch.
Mosque leaders confirmed Havard stayed there and studied in 2011, but denied radical teaching took place. But a man who attended a converts’ weekend at the mosque 10 years ago said a visiting speaker from Indonesia talked about violent jihad and plenty shared his views. “Most of the men were angry with the moral weakness of New Zealand. I would say they were radical.”
It is believed that he was also radicalized by listening to online extremist preachers such as Anwar Al-Awlaki and mingling with radicals while in Sydney.
For such a small nation, New Zealand has had a surprising concentration of radical Muslims.
In 2018 a New Zealand judge sentenced a man for calling for retaliation for the Quebec mosque shooting. The same year, a teen was arrested for planning to ram a car into a crowd of people but was narrowly prevented from doing so. While the 15 year old boy was still undergoing treatment he was considered a significant risk to the community.
You may also remember Mark John Taylor the bumbling Jihadi from New Zealand. Taylor burned his passport and encouraged others to wage jihad on ANZAC day and join him in Syria. He was made famous when he forgot to turn off his GPS before posting on social media and gave away the position of his ISIS comrades, resulting in them being killed by a coalition airstrike. He also spoke of teaching children using puppets.
This is of course does not in any way justify the horrific terror attack carried out by killer Brenton Tarrant on the mosque. But this is a reminder that this attack should not mean that Islam’s own links to extremism in the west should be deleted from history and never mentioned.
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