Bærum mosque shooting

The door to the mosque after the shooting

Before going to the mosque, Manshaus killed his younger stepsister while she was in her bed, firing three bullets into her head and one into her chest.[2] He was wearing a uniform and helmet when he entered the mosque,[3][4] shooting his way through the locked door.[5][6] Manshaus attempted to livestream the shooting on Facebook using a GoPro camera attached to his helmet, but failed.[7][8] He was carrying two rifles and a shotgun,[9][10] stolen from his father's gun cabinet.[11] He opened fire in the mosque, hitting no one.[12]

Prayers had just ended, with only three elders remaining in the mosque. One of the men, Mohammad Rafiq, approached the gunman and pinned him down, moving Manshaus's weapons away after he dropped them.[12][13] The two began to struggle, and the gunman poked Rafiq in the left eye.[13] Manshaus escaped from his grip 3 times, but was successfully recaptured.[12]

Another elder in the mosque, Mohamed Iqbal, hit the gunman on the head with his rifle to subdue him.[12][14] The police were called at 16:07 local time.[15] Another worshipper, Irfan Mushtaq, came to the mosque and helped restrain Manshaus by tying his legs together using the imam's shawl.[16][17] Manshaus was in a chokehold when police arrived at the mosque.[18]

Philip Manshaus (born (1997-08-29)29 August 1997)[19] a 21-year-old Norwegian man, perpetrated the attack.[20][21] He lived in Bærum.[22][23] He was indicted for terrorism and murder.[24] His biological mother and grandmother died by suicide when he was four years old.[25] As a teenager, he had been in a gay relationship[26][27] and had a history of experimenting with drugs.[25][26]

Manshaus had been interested in conspiracy theories since the summer of 2017.[28][29] He openly discussed with his friends antisemitic conspiracy theories about the Holocaust[28] and attempted to convince them of his beliefs, which led to his friends avoiding him.[26][28] His internet activity included him reading about school shootings in Finland and in the US.[28]

On 18 June 2018, a tip about Manshaus was sent to the PST, stating that he had far-right views and that his friends called him a neo-Nazi.[26] After coordinating with the local police department, Oslo Police District, they found that the tip was vague and showed no signs Manshaus had any plans to commit a violent attack. Manshaus was not interviewed and the tip was not followed up on.[26][30] Manshaus's family were not informed of the report.[26]

In the weeks before the attack, Manshaus had tried to join the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement, but due to an internal split in the organization he never got beyond the first of two planned initiation interviews.[28][31] Manshaus's family noticed he had attached newspaper clippings about the Christchurch mosque shootings, a swastika, and information on other terrorist attacks to his wall, and hid it behind a Norwegian flag.[26][32] After he learned his stepmother was considering reporting him to the PST, he took them down, and tried to seem as if he was no longer far right.[26] The day of the shooting, his stepmother decided to inform the police.[32]

Manshaus drafted a manifesto, but did not finish it.[33]

The message sent by Manshaus to the imageboard EndChan

Shortly before the shooting, Manshaus posted a message on the imageboard EndChan.[5][7] His message included statements telling people that "it's my time, i was elected by saint tarrant", asking those he was messaging to "bump the race war thread irl", and stating that "valhalla awaits".[34] The messages were seen as praising Brenton Tarrant, the perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque shootings in March 2019,[35] and referred to him as "saint tarrant".[36] The Christchurch shootings were partially inspired by the 22/7 attacks that happened in Norway in 2011.[35][36]

Attached to the message was a meme depicting Tarrant, Patrick Crusius, and John Earnest as "chads". All three perpetrated racially and/or religiously motivated mass shootings in 2019, including Crusius's attack on a Walmart in El Paso, Texas only a week earlier.[7] Manshaus's posts also featured him describing himself as the "third disciple"; internet extremism researchers connected this with the rhetoric of Tarrant, suggesting the other 'disciples' were Earnest and Crusius.[37] Online, Manshaus expressed far-right, anti-immigration views, and praised Vidkun Quisling, who headed a domestic Nazi collaborationist regime during World War II.[6][38] Norwegian police reported that they spoke with Manshaus prior to the shooting due to his online behavior.[39] When questioned by police, Manshaus declared that his goal was to intimidate Muslims in Norway.[40]

Manshaus's 17-year-old stepsister, Johanne Zhangjia Ihle-Hansen, was found dead in their family home by police.[2][41][42] She was born in Jiangxi, China, and adopted at 9 months old by Manshaus's stepmother.[26][42] Manshaus stated in court that he killed her because she was not ethnically Norwegian.[43]

Ihle-Hansen sent various messages to others through the messaging app Discord expressing frustration and concern over Manshaus's views, and said she did not feel safe.[43] The day before her murder, she told her boyfriend that Manshaus listened to a speech that expressed racist views against those of Chinese descent, and stated that what she was going through was "madness".[26][43]

The injured man was 65-year-old Mohammad Rafiq. During the scuffle with the perpetrator, Rafiq overpowered and disarmed him before he could attack anyone else in the mosque.[6][24][13] He received minor injuries while the perpetrator tried to break free from a chokehold, including an attempt to gouge out Rafiq's left eye.[13][38][44] Rafiq is a Pakistani retired Air Force officer who had moved to Bærum to be with his son in 2017.[16] He was a frequent visitor to the Al-Noor Islamic Center.[13][45]

Authorities reported that security in Norway would be increased after the attack, as it occurred during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha,[54] with the Prime Minister raising the national security the following day.[13] The Al-Noor Islamic Centre had already added extra security after the Christchurch mosque shootings.[55] According to local Norwegian media, the mosque said that security would be improved again.[35]

EndChan deleted the thread that Manshaus created, and had its primary web domain taken offline following the attack.[5]

The Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, condemned the attack.[54] Solberg and Abid Raja, a Liberal Norwegian politician, spoke together on the day of the attack, assuring the public that places of worship should be safe and calling for plans to break down Islamophobia in the country.[38] Another reaction to the incident was a speech given by Siv Jensen, the leader of the right-wing Progress Party, who also referred to Rafiq as a hero.[56] The day after the attack, on the Eid al-Adha celebration day, Solberg and other important figures, as well as the men from the mosque, attended a ceremony in solidarity held in Sandvika.[14][57]

As news of the shooting spread in the media, so did the actions of Rafiq and the other man in the mosque, which a Danish newspaper described as "courageous";[58] several media outlets described Rafiq as a "hero".[59]

A Norwegian philanthropist, Elisabeth Norheim, started a fundraising campaign[60] on a Norwegian crowdfunding website.[61] to help raise money so Rafiq and the other man who helped subdue the attack could undertake the hajj. After the initial goal of 55,000 NOK (~ 6100 USD) for the cost of the two to travel was surpassed,[44][62] with more than 180,000 NOK (~20,000 USD) raised in one day, the organizers said they could also fund the hajj for the third man in the mosque during the attack.[44] The fund raised was later passed the adjusted goal of 230,000 NOK (~25,000 USD).

On 15 August 2019, a ceremony was held at the Sandvika Police House to praise Rafiq and the other man for their actions.[63][64] It was hosted by Beate Gangås, the Oslo Police Commander-in-Chief, and Lisbeth Hammer Krogh, the mayor of Bærum.[64]

It emerged during the 2022 parole hearing of Anders Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of the 22/7 July attacks in Norway, that Breivik's lawyer wished for Breivik to serve his sentence with a cellmate. Breivik's lawyer requested that Manshaus be his cellmate, as he believed they would not harm each other.[65]

• Kongsberg attack
• Christchurch mosque shootings
• Poway synagogue shooting
• 2019 El Paso shooting
• Halle synagogue shooting
• Bayonne mosque shooting