Miss Zomboko
JF-Expert Member
- May 18, 2014
- 4,569
- 9,430
The Australian authorities are treating an abduction and a killing here in Melbourne on Monday, which ended with the gunman dead, as a terrorist attack.
The police killed the gunman after he held a woman hostage at an apartment complex in Brighton, one of Melbourne’s wealthiest suburbs. The woman was rescued, and another man was found dead in the lobby, the police said. The authorities did not immediately identify the victims.
The police identified the gunman as Yacqub Khayre, an Australian citizen with a long criminal record who came to the country from Somalia as a child refugee. Graham Ashton, the chief police commissioner for Victoria State, said Khayre was known to the police “for a whole range of offending,” including drug and violent crimes and arson.
Khayre served a significant amount of prison time and was on parole at the time of the attack, the commissioner said. The gunman was acquitted in an investigation of a terrorism plot in New South Wales several years ago, but since then, he was involved in routine criminal activity, Ashton said. “There wasn’t anything suggesting he was about to do this.”
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack early Tuesday morning, Melbourne time, calling the assailant a “soldier” of the terrorist group. The statement said he had acted in response to the group’s public calls to supporters to carry out violent attacks against countries in the coalition that is trying to defeat theIslamic State in Iraq and Syria.Australia is part of the coalition.
“There are some very, very grave questions,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Tuesday. “How was this man on parole? He had a very, very long record of violence.”
The episode started with reports of a possible explosion about 4 p.m. Roughly two hours later, the police declared that they had the situation under control.
the-star.co.ke
The police killed the gunman after he held a woman hostage at an apartment complex in Brighton, one of Melbourne’s wealthiest suburbs. The woman was rescued, and another man was found dead in the lobby, the police said. The authorities did not immediately identify the victims.
The police identified the gunman as Yacqub Khayre, an Australian citizen with a long criminal record who came to the country from Somalia as a child refugee. Graham Ashton, the chief police commissioner for Victoria State, said Khayre was known to the police “for a whole range of offending,” including drug and violent crimes and arson.
Khayre served a significant amount of prison time and was on parole at the time of the attack, the commissioner said. The gunman was acquitted in an investigation of a terrorism plot in New South Wales several years ago, but since then, he was involved in routine criminal activity, Ashton said. “There wasn’t anything suggesting he was about to do this.”
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack early Tuesday morning, Melbourne time, calling the assailant a “soldier” of the terrorist group. The statement said he had acted in response to the group’s public calls to supporters to carry out violent attacks against countries in the coalition that is trying to defeat theIslamic State in Iraq and Syria.Australia is part of the coalition.
“There are some very, very grave questions,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Tuesday. “How was this man on parole? He had a very, very long record of violence.”
The episode started with reports of a possible explosion about 4 p.m. Roughly two hours later, the police declared that they had the situation under control.
the-star.co.ke
