Australian counterterror officers who shot man dead had no choice: officials

CANBERRA, Australia – Two Australian counterterrorism police had no choice but to shoot a suspected terrorist when he attacked them in a confrontation in Australia’s second largest city, top police officials said Wednesday.

Some experts suspect Tuesday’s attack, which left the suspect dead, was inspired by the Islamic State group’s call to supporters to wage terror in their home countries.

An Australian Federal Police officer and a Victoria state police officer who were part of a Joint Counter Terrorism Team had asked the 18-year-old man to come to a police station in southeast Melbourne in relation to a routine matter in an investigation when the violence erupted outside the station, Victoria state police Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius said.

The two officers were stabbed before one of them shot the man dead, Cornelius said. He declined to release the man’s name.

“Our members had no inkling that this individual posed a threat to them and as far as we were concerned, it was going to be an amicable discussion about that individual’s behaviour,” Cornelius told reporters, adding that the officer had “no choice” but to shoot.

READ MORE: Australian terrorism threat at 2nd-highest level

Both police officers were taken to a hospital.

“It appears this individual was acting on his own and was not acting in concert with other individuals,” Cornelius said. “It’s our belief at this stage that this is an isolated incident.”

Justice Minister Michael Keenan, who is responsible for the federal police, said the federal officer was in serious but stable condition. The state police officer’s condition was stable.

Keenan described the dead man as “a known terror suspect who was a person of interest to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.”

The stabbing was unprovoked and the shooting appeared to be in self-defence, Keenan said.

Keenan said he had briefed Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who has travelled to New York to attend a United Nations Security Council meeting on the problem of 15,000 foreign fighters who are in Iraq and Syria.

“Whilst this is a horrible incident, we do need to stay calm and go about our daily lives,” Keenan told reporters.

Onlookers said the dead man had been shouting insults about Abbott and the Australian government in general in the moments before he was shot, The Age newspaper reported.

Australian Federal Police Commander Bruce Giles said reports that the deceased man had earlier been waving an Islamic State flag were being investigated.

A statement issued by Islamic State group spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani and made public this week asked Muslims to use all means to kill a “disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian or a Canadian” or any disbeliever and others whose countries have joined to try to disable and destroy the group.

Australian National University Professor of National Security Michael Wesley blamed the statement for the attack.

“I think that this attack occurring in the context of the fatwa that came out earlier this week, a fatwa that implored followers to attack infidels and ask no one’s permission, thereby really an incitement to lone-wolf attacks – I don’t think that’s a coincidence at all,” Wesley said.

The Islamic Council of Victoria state, a leading Muslim group, said in a statement the tragedy highlighted the need to deal with the root causes of alienation and disaffection of people like the man killed.

The Defence Department announced Wednesday that an Australian air force contingent including eight F/A-18 Hornet jet fighters had arrived in the United Arab Emirates. The jets are expected to be used in air strikes against Islamic State fighters in Iraq, although the Australian government has yet to commit to a combat role.

Earlier this month, Australia raised its terror warning to the second-highest level, citing the domestic threat posed by supporters of the Islamic State group.

Last week, police detained 16 people in counterterrorism raids in Sydney and charged one with conspiring with an Islamic State movement leader in Syria to kidnap and behead a randomly selected person. Another man faces a lesser weapons charge; the rest were released.