Police in Australia shoot boy dead after stabbing with ‘hallmarks’ of terrorism
Police in Western Australia have shot dead a boy after he stabbed a man in Perth, in an attack authorities said indicated terrorism.
There were signs the 16-year-old, armed with a kitchen knife, had been radicalised online, state authorities said, adding they received calls from concerned members of the local Muslim community before the attack, which occurred late on Saturday night.
The apparently random attack, in the car park of a hardware store in the suburb of Willetton, had “hallmarks” of terrorism but was yet to be declared a terrorist act, police said. The attacker was a “Caucasian’’ who reportedly had adopted Islam.
The victim, stabbed in the back, was stable in hospital, authorities said.
State Police Commissioner Col Blanch said when police were called to the car park, the youth lunged at officers with the knife and was shot. The boy had been participating in a program for young people at risk of radicalisation, Commissioner Blanch said.
“I don’t want to say he has been radicalised or is radicalised because I think that forms part of the investigation,” he said on Sunday.
Police said they were later alerted by a phone call from a member of the public that a knife attack was under way in the parking lot. Three police officers responded, one armed with a gun and two with conducted energy devices.
Police deployed both conducted energy devices but they failed to incapacitate the boy before he was killed by a single gunshot, Mr Blanch said.
Mr Blanch said members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with police about the boy’s behaviour before he was killed on Saturday.
“At this stage it appears that he acted solely and alone,” Western Australia Premier Roger Cook told a televised press conference in Perth, regarding the attacker.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had been briefed on the incident by police and intelligence agencies, which advised there was no ongoing threat.
“We are a peace-loving nation and there is no place for violent extremism in Australia,” Mr Albanese said on social media platform X.
My thoughts are with those who have been affected by the incident in the Perth suburb of Willetton overnight.
I have spoken with WA Premier Roger Cook this morning, and I thank the WA Police for acting swiftly to contain the incident.— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) May 5, 2024
The incident comes after New South Wales police last month charged several boys with terrorism-related offences in investigations following the stabbing of an Assyrian Christian bishop while he was giving a live-streamed sermon in Sydney, on April 15.
The attack on the bishop came only days after a stabbing spree killed six in the Sydney beachside suburb of Bondi.
The Imam of Perth’s largest mosque, the Nasir Mosque, condemned the Perth stabbing on Sunday.
“There is no place for violence in Islam,” Imam Syed Wadood Janud said in a statement. “We appreciate the effort of the police to keep our communities safe. I also want to commend the local Muslim community who had flagged the individual prior with the police,” Mr Wadood said.
Some Muslim leaders have criticised Australian police for declaring last month’s church stabbing a terrorist act but not a rampage two days earlier in a Sydney shopping mall in which six people were killed and a dozen wounded, the Associated Press reported.
The 40-year-old attacker in the mall attack was shot dead by police. Police have yet to reveal the man’s motive.
The church attack is only the third to be classified by Australian authorities as a terrorist act since 2018.
