Australian police shoot teen dead after stabbing with ‘hallmarks’ of terrorism
Officials say signs showed 16-year-old, armed with a kitchen knife, had been radicalized online; concerned members of local Muslim community had contacted authorities before attack
SYDNEY — Australian police said on Sunday they had shot dead a boy after he stabbed a man in Western Australia’s capital Perth, in an attack authorities said indicated terrorism.
There were signs the 16-year-old, armed with a kitchen knife, had been radicalized 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 attack, in the suburb of Willetton, had “hallmarks” of terrorism but was yet to be declared a terrorist act, police said.
The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night.
A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back. He was taken to a hospital in serious but stable condition, a police statement said.
The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters on Sunday.
“At this stage, it appears that he acted solely and alone,” Cook told a televised press conference in the state capital 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,” Albanese said on social media platform X.
Police received an emergency phone call after 10 p.m. from a teenager saying he was going to commit acts of violence, Western Australian Police Commissioner Col Blanch said.
The boy had been participating in a program for young people at risk of radicalization, Blanch added.
“I don’t want to say he has been radicalized or is radicalized because I think that forms part of the investigation,” he said.
Police body camera images showed the teenager refused officers’ demands that he put down the knife, the police chief said.
The weapon was a 30-centimeter (one-foot) kitchen knife, believed to be from the attacker’s home, Blanch said.
Officers fired two Tasers at him but “both of them did not have the full desired effect,” he said.
“The male continued to advance on the third officer with a firearm who fired a single shot and fatally wounded the male.”
The teenager died in the hospital later in the night, he said.
Police believe the teenager sent “relevant messages” to some members of the Muslim community who immediately called police, Blanch said, without giving details of the messages.
The boy had “mental issues but also online radicalization issues,” the police chief said.
In the past two years, the attacker had been part of a “countering violence extremism program” for people who show signs of “religious or issues-motivated” concerns, he said.
“It is not a criminal-based approach but it is a program to help individuals who are expressing ideologies that are of concern in our community. But they may not be committing any crimes.”
Police said they did not know what had triggered the attack.
The imam of Perth’s largest mosque, the Nasir Mosque, condemned the stabbing.
“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,” Wadood added.
The incident comes after New South Wales police last month charged several boys with terrorism-related offenses 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.
Gun and knife crime is rare in Australia, which consistently ranks among the safest countries in the world, according to the federal government.
