I’ve just read the most amazing story: news.yahoo.com/…
The white supremacist killer killed at least 41 at one mosque and went to drive to a second mosque. Inside that second mosque was 48-year-old Abdul Aziz, there at a service with his four sons and about 80 other people. Aziz is a refugee from Afghanistan.
He heard gunshots, looked out a window, and saw the killer, armed with an assault rifle, running toward the front door. So what did he do? He attacked the killer!
He had no weapon, so he picked up a credit card processing machine and ran out the door, confronting the killer. The cowardly killer was no doubt unnerved to suddenly find that he was the hunted. Aziz threw the credit card machine at the killer, and then ran around, zigging and zagging and ducking behind cars in a parking lot, while the killer pursued him at close range, spraying scores of rounds from an automatic rifle, and not hitting Aziz a single time.
The killer ran to his car to get another rifle, and Aziz again ran toward him! He found a rifle the killer had dropped, And although the magazine was empty, Aziz hoisted it on his shoulder and ran toward the killer. By this time the killer was terrified and started to leave in a panic.
At this point, Aziz launched the rifle like a spear and broke out the killer’s windshield! The killer escaped in a panic and was picked up by cops just a few blocks away.
Aziz’s tremendous heroism must have saved at least 50 lives. I hope the NZ government will give him its highest honors.
ON EDIT: This reminds me that Afghans have been famous for thousands of years for being ferocious, fearless fighters. Afghanistan is the only country in Eurasia that has never been conquered. Alexander the Great failed. The Mongols failed. The Moghuls (IIRC) failed. The British failed miserably. The Russians failed miserably. And for the last 17 years the Americans have been failing miserably.
It’s hard not to see this story as some kind of miracle! Who has the courage to charge unarmed and unarmored into the mouth of an automatic rifle firing at close range?! I’ll bet his dominant thought was to protect his four boys at any cost.
CORRECTION: The hero’s name is Abdul Aziz Wahabzadah, not just Abdul Aziz. www.cnn.com/…
I got the name “Abdul Aziz” from the top link, the first article I saw on this story. Since I’m an immigration lawyer, I should have recognized that Abdul Aziz was possibly not his full name. However, there are some people in south and central Asia who only have one name—no first name, no middle name, no surname, just one name. Also, Abdul Aziz is a very common Muslim name and there are many famous people named simply Abdul Aziz. en.wikipedia.org/…
ODD REQUEST on update. Our profiles show our most recommended diary. For years my profile showed a personal diary I wrote after my return home from major surgery. It got 468 recs. This current diary (which took no longer than five minutes to write) is my best diary in 15 years. It now has 467 recs. I hope at least two more people will rec it, so that this can be put on my profile. Thanks! And apologies for such an odd request.
UPDATE 2: On Monday afternoon I see that several commenters are pointing out that some details may be a bit different from what I wrote in this diary. That’s almost always the case with complicated and dramatic stories. I fired off the diary in five minutes after reading the first article I’d seen on the story, which is in the first link. Subsequently there have been many other stories from around the world, and the story keeps being refined. I decided not to keep fact-checking my own diary; it would have been an infinite regress. But I think the diary does accurately describe the heart of the story. And I encourage everybody to google Abdul Aziz, because this amazing story is worth a tremendous amount of attention. Thanks to everybody for so many kind and knowledgeable comments.