Opinion | Was the Christchurch shooter part of a white-supremacist network taking cues from al-Qaeda and Islamic State?
- Links have emerged between the shooter and a Ukrainian ultranationalist, white supremacist paramilitary organisation called the Azov Battalion
- Ironically, there are similarities in ideology, strategy and recruitment tactics between such right-wing extremists and jihadist groups
His transnational ties go beyond Ukraine, however, as he claimed he was in touch with Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist, and he took trips throughout Europe, including the Balkans, visiting sites that symbolised historical battles between Christians and Muslims.
In the video of his attack, he was heard listening to a song that glorified Bosnian-Serb war criminal Radovan Karadzic, and his gun bore racist messages and the names of white supremacists from around the world.
The Azov Battalion is emerging as a critical node in the transnational right-wing violent extremist (RWE) network. This group maintains its own “Western Outreach Office” to help recruit and attract foreign fighters that travel to train and connect with people from like-minded violent organisations from across the globe.
Operatives from the outreach office travel around Europe to promote the organisation and proselytise its mission of white supremacy. In July 2018, German-language fliers were distributed among the visitors at a right-wing rock festival in the German state of Thuringia, inviting them to be part of the Azov battalion: “join the ranks of the best” to “save Europe from extinction”.
It has also established youth camps, sporting recreation centres, lecture halls, and far-right education programmes, including some that teach military tactics and far-right ideology to children as young as nine years old. This aggressive approach to networking serves one of the Azov Battalion’s overarching objectives – transforming areas under its control in Ukraine into the primary hub for transnational white supremacy.