Suspected gunman has been identified as an Australian man Brenton Tarrant, 28. Source:Supplied

Forty people have been killed after a gunman opened fire at two mosques in the New Zealand city.

The gunman who livestreamed himself opening fire on a Christchurch mosque has posted a manifesto online explaining why he committed the attack.

news.com.au MARCH 15, 20195:37PM

A gunman who livestreamed himself opening fire on a Christchurch mosque, turned the camera on himself before carrying out his deadly attack.

The gunman who livestreamed himself opening fire at the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch also posted a manifesto online addressing his reasons for the attack.

Police have taken three people into custody after the gunman shot at worshippers as they gathered for Friday prayers. At least 40 people are dead with another 25 people listed as critical.

Armed police were deployed around the Al Noor mosque where shooting broke out at 1.40pm (NZ time) on Friday, with the city’s schools and hospital locked down. Reports later emerged of shots at another mosque in Linwood Avenue.

The man, who identified himself on Twitter as ‘Brenton Tarrant’ from Australia, livestreamed his deadly attack and turned the camera on himself before carrying out the attack.

             

The gunman who livestreamed himself opening fire on a Christchurch mosque, turned the camera on himself before carrying out his deadly attack. Source:Supplied

In a vile 73-page manifesto posted online, he described himself as “just a regular White man”.

The 28-year-old noted he was born “to a working class, low-income family … who decided to take a stand to ensure a future for my people”.

The gunman — whose background NSW counter-terrorism police are now investigating after reports he is from Grafton — said he carried out the attack to “directly reduce immigration rates to European lands”.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed an individual taken into custody is an Australian-born citizen. He called him “an extremist, right-wing, violent terrorist”.

The header photo on Tarrant’s Twitter account shows a victim of the 2016 Bastille Day terror attack in Nice.

The famous photo by Reuters photographer Eric Gaillard came to symbolise the Bastille Day massacre when 84 people were killed by a truck plowing into holidaying crowds, Reuters says.

He described his reasons for the disgusting attack as to “show the invaders that our lands will never be their lands, our homelands are our own and that, as long as a white man still lives, they will NEVER conquer our lands and they will never replace our people”.

Tarrant revealed he had been planning an attack for up to two years, noting he decided on Christchurch three months ago.

He said New Zealand was not the “original choice for attack”, but described it as “target rich of an environment as anywhere else in the West”.

“An attack in New Zealand would bring to attention the truth of the assault on our civilisation, that no where (sic) in the world was safe, the invaders were in all of our lands, even in the remotest areas of the world and that tehre was no where (sic) left to go that was safe and free from mass immigration.”

Ebba Akerlund

Claiming to represent “millions of European and other ethno-nationalist peoples”, he said “we must ensure the existence of our people, and a future for white children”.

The gunman described the attack as an act of “revenge on the invaders for the hundreds of thousands of death caused by foreign invaders in European lands throughout history … for the enslavement of millions of Europeans taken from their lands by the Islamic slavers … (and) for the thousands of European lives lost to terror attacks throughout European lands.”

He also said it was to take revenge for Ebba Akerlund, the 11-year-old child who was killed in a 2017 terror attack in Stockholm.