A terror suspect shot dead by Australian police after stabbing two officers in a frenzied knife attack might not have been acting alone, officials said yesterday, escalating concerns about the threat posed by radicalized youth.
Abdul Numan Haider, 18, was killed on Tuesday evening on the outskirts of Melbourne, a day after the Islamic State (IS) group called for Muslims to indiscriminately kill Australians.
The teenager, described by the government as a “known terror suspect” who had his passport canceled for security reasons, launched an unprovoked attack on the policemen outside their station after arriving for a “routine” interview.
One of them fired a single shot that killed him.
Police on Wednesday said they believed he was acting alone, but Victoria State Police Chief Ken Lay said they were now looking into reports that Haider was talking to other people in the lead-up to the attack.
“There is some information that he was certainly talking to other people around the time that he came to the police station,” he told ABC radio. “[They] may well have known him. I won’t say working with him, but it’s just a little unclear to us at the moment whether there was actually people at the police station with him.”
He said police were examining whether someone might have been waiting for him.
“It may be a little way down the track before we can actually lay it out to the community exactly what happened that night,” Lay added.
Reports on Wednesday said Haider, who was under surveillance, had an IS flag with him and planned to behead the officers and post the images online, although police would not confirm this.
Australian media painted a picture of a trainee electrician who was well-liked, but who changed when he befriended a small group of hardline Muslims who support radical causes at an Islamic center near his home.
The Australian newspaper claimed he became entranced by the group’s advance in Iraq and Syria and their call for foreign fighters to join them, and was enraged when police carried out counter-terrorism raids in Sydney and Brisbane last week.
It cited police as saying he was acting in direct response to the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, releasing a statement on Monday urging the killing of citizens of countries taking part in the US-led coalition against the group.
In related developments, an Australian Defence Force member was attacked by two men “of Middle Eastern appearance” in Sydney yesterday, police said, two days after a teenager was shot dead after stabbing two counter-terrorism officers.
The officer, who was in uniform, was approached by two men who threatened and assaulted him, a New South Wales police spokesman said.
He suffered minor bruising and reported the matter to police.
Australia, a staunch ally of the US and its escalating action against the Islamic State is on high alert for attacks by militants returning to the country from fighting in the Middle East.
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