Police: Stabbing of bishop was terrorist attack

Police in Australia on Tuesday declared the stabbing of a bishop during a service Monday evening in Sydney a terrorist attack.

“We can confirm that this incident has now been declared a terrorist attack,” Australian Federal Police Commissioner

Reece Kershaw said at a press conference with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra.

Mike Burgess, director general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, said the stabbing appears to have been “religiously motivated.”

Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, leader of the Assyrian Church of the East for Australia and New Zealand, was stabbed Monday evening at Christ The Good Shepherd in southwest Sydney.