IS claims responsibility for attack
Vehicle loaded with gas cylinders was an arsenal set to blow up on eve of busy weekend in Melbourne
A KNIFE-WIELDING man stabbed three people, one fatally, in Australia’s second-largest city yesterday in an attack that police linked to terrorism.
The attack, during the afternoon rush hour, brought central Melbourne to a standstill. Hundreds of people watched from behind barricades as police tried to apprehend the attacker.
Police said the man got out of a vehicle, which then caught fire, and attacked three bystanders with a knife. He also tried to attack police who arrived on the scene, before being shot in the chest by an officer.
The suspect died later at a hospital. One of the victims also died, while the two others were hospitalised.
Police said the attacker’s vehicle contained several barbecue gas cylinders. A bomb squad rendered them safe.
Victoria state police commissioner Graham Ashton said the suspect, originally from Somalia, was known to police and the incident was being treated as terrorism.
“From what we know of that individual, we are treating this as a terrorism incident,” Ashton said, adding that the police counterterrorism command was working on the case, as well as homicide detectives.
“He’s known to police mainly in respect to relatives that he has which certainly are persons of interest to us, and he’s someone that accordingly is know to Victorian police and the federal intelligence authorities,” he said.
The Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement released through its Aamaq media arm. It said the man was “one of the Islamic State fighters” and had responded to IS calls for attacks in countries that are part of the international coalition fighting the militants in Syria and Iraq.
The group, which has suffered heavy battlefield setbacks in the past year, often claims responsibility for attacks.
The attack occurred on the eve of a busy weekend in Melbourne, with a major horse race scheduled for today and a national league soccer match tomorrow, which is also Remembrance Day, when memorial ceremonies for World War I are held.
Ashton said police were “doing security reassessments of these events in light of what’s occurred”, but there was “no ongoing threat we’re currently aware of in relation to people surrounding this individual”.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison condemned the “evil and cowardly attack”.
“Australians will never be intimidated by these appalling attacks and we will continue to go about our lives and enjoy the freedoms that the terrorists detest,” he said.
One witness said one of the stabbing victims, believed to be a man in his sixties who later died, was stabbed
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“Because he was on his stomach, they turned him over to see if he was all right, he was still alive,” the witness, Markel Villasin, said.
“He was breathing and he was bleeding out.”
Video from the scene showed a man swinging a knife at two police officers near a burning car before he was shot.
In December 2014, a 17-hour siege in which a gunman took 18 people hostage in a Sydney café ended with two hostages dead and the gunman killed by police. Though the erratic gunman demanded that police deliver him an Islamic State flag at the outset of the crisis, there was no evidence he had established contact with the group.
However, at a later inquest, the coroner of New South Wales state said the gunman’s actions fell “within the accepted definition of terrorism”.
Melbourne was also the scene of two fatal car-ramming incidents last year, but neither was linked by police to terrorism. | A FAST-MOVING wildfire that ravaged a Northern California town yesterday sent residents racing to escape on roads that turned into tunnels of fire as thick smoke darkened the daytime sky. Several thousand buildings were destroyed by flames, a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection official said.
“We were surrounded by fire, we were driving through fire on each side of the road,” said police officer Mark Bass, who lives in the hard-hit town of Paradise, where harrowing tales of escape and heroic rescues emerged after the entire community of 27000 was ordered to evacuate.
Witnesses reported seeing homes, supermarkets, businesses, restaurants, schools and a retirement home up in flames.
Acting California Govenor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in the area. |