Christchurch: Armed police have raided two Christchurch homes after a person allegedly made a series of online posts threatening a terrorist attack involving car bombs on March 15, the second anniversary of the mosque massacre.
Members of the armed offenders squad carried out search warrants at the properties in St Albans and Linwood shortly before 6pm on Thursday.
Two men were arrested, but are yet to be charged, police said.
Detective Inspector Michael Ford said police had acted on information from the public regarding “concerning communications on the 4chan site”.
The site is an anonymous online message board known to be frequented by far-right individuals.
On Sunday night, a person made a series of posts on the site using a similar online name to that used by the Australian terrorist who fatally shot 51 people at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques in Christchurch on March 15, 2019.
The poster said they were “originally English”, but grew up in South Africa before moving to New Zealand in 2009.
The person said they planned to “take action” on March 15 by carrying out an attack remotely on the two mosques using car bombs.
The explosions would be livestreamed, they said.
Others on the message board told them not to do anything “stupid or radical”.
