Terrorist shot in NZ attack

AN Islamic State-inspired terrorist was shot and killed by New Zealand police after he stabbed six people in an Auckland supermarket.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the man, a 32-year-old known as S for legal reasons, had been on the radar of police and intelligence agencies since 2016.

“This was a violent attack, it was senseless on innocent New Zealanders,” Ms Ardern said in Wellington.

“What happened today was despicable, it was hateful, it was wrong.”

It was committed by an individual who was an “ISISinspired known threat” to New Zealand, she said.

He had been under 24/7 watch and undercover officers killed him within 60 seconds of the attack. “The terrorist is a Sri Lankan national who arrived in 2011,” Ms Ardern said.

She said he had not committed offences that allowed him to be kept behind bars.

Police said the attack happened when the man entered the Countdown supermarket in the suburb of New Lynn, in Auckland’s west, as people were doing afternoon shopping. The St John Ambulance Service said six people were taken to hospital, three in critical condition.

New Zealand’s worst terror attack was the Christchurch mosques shootings in March 2019, when an Australian white supremacist murdered 51 Muslim worshippers.