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Terror suspect killed after Aust police stabbed

Sep 24, 2014
Members of the bomb squad at the scene of the shooting.

Members of the bomb squad at the scene of the shooting.

An 18-year-old who stabbed two police officers in Melbourne was a known terror suspect who police had been monitoring for months.

The Muslim man greeted two officers with a handshake before stabbing them both multiple times outside the Endeavour Hills police station.

The joint counter terrorism taskforce had been monitoring the Narre Warren teenager for a number of months, Victoria Police chief commissioner Ken Lay said.

“I think the fact that the joint counter terrorism taskforce was doing some work around him indicates our level of concern,” Lay told Fairfax Radio on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the stabbings  showed some Australians were capable of “extreme acts”.

Abbott, who is in Hawaii on his way to a United Nations meeting in New York, said the Melbourne man had mounted a “fierce attack” on the police officers.

“Obviously this indicates that there are people in our community who are capable of very extreme acts,” he said.

“It also indicates that police will be constantly vigilant to protect us from people who would do us harm.”

Abbott said he had spoken to the wives of the police officers to assure them of the government’s support and respect for the professionalism of their husbands.

Police rejected media reports that the man had made specific threats against the Prime Minister.

Australian Federal Police acting commissioner Andrew Colvin said “Police and security agencies in this country do not have any information of any specific threats and we didn’t have information of a specific threat on this occasion”.

The man’s passport had been cancelled.

Justice Minister Michael Keenan said the man was a known terror suspect.

“The person in question was a known terror suspect who was a person of interest to law enforcement and intelligence agencies,” Keenan told reporters in Canberra.

The man agreed to meet police at the Endeavour Hills station on Tuesday night to discuss what Australian Federal Police Commander Bruce Giles described as a “routine” issue.

“The incident took place in the course of normal greetings; so, meeting with the individual, shaking hands, introducing and then the incident unfolded,” Giles told reporters at the scene.

He said it appeared the man had been acting alone.

Giles confirmed there was information suggesting the man had recently been seen with a flag of the jihadist group ISIS, also known as Islamic State.

Islamic Council of Victoria secretary Ghaith Krayem confirmed the man was a Muslim and said his family was struggling.

He said the man had been involved with Al-Furqan, a group raided by police in 2012, but had not had recent contact with them.

Krayem said the threat of ISIS in Australia had been overplayed and police were on top of potential terror threats in Melbourne.

“There’s nobody who I’m aware of in the last couple of months in terms of who the police are looking at, who the police weren’t already looking at well before now,” he said.

The man stabbed an AFP officer three to four times before twice stabbing a Victorian officer in the forearm, police said.

Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius said the Victorian officer fired a single shot that killed the man.

“Our members had no inkling that this individual posed a threat to them,” he told reporters.

“It’s absolutely clear to us that our members really had no choice other than to act in the way in which they did.”

Cornelius said police had not singled the man out.

“Where we see individuals behaving in a way which causes concern for public safety, we have to reach out to those individuals,” he said.

Both officers were taken to hospital, where they remain in a stable condition.

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