Attacks in mosques leave at least 49 dead/PHOTOS

Attacks in mosques leave at least 49 dead/PHOTOS

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said earlier that such an event could only be described as "a terrorist attack" and added that New Zealand had raised the level of security to highest, BBC reported.

Ardern confirmed that four persons who hold extremist views were taken into custody after the attacks, but that they were not on any police list of suspicious persons prior to the deadly incidents.

Among the four is the suspected shooter, 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant, reportedly a self-described "ethno-nationalist and eco-fascist, communist, anarchist, and libertarian."

In inscriptions on his weapons, Tarrant references a series of historical figures and events that saw Europeans fight against Muslims, including Serb medieval military figures and other leaders who fought against Ottoman Turk invaders, Milos Obilic among them.

It is also reported that on his way to a mosque where he is suspected to have gunned down dozens of people, Tarrant listened to a song dedicated to Radovan Karadzic - wartime political leader of Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina whom the Hague Tribunal has sentenced to 40 years in prison on charges of war crimes and genocide.