SYDNEY: Australian police on Tuesday said a brutal live-streamed knife attack at a church service in Sydney was a religiously motivated “terrorist” act, as they urged calm from the angered local community.
A prominent bishop was among those being treated for “non-life threatening injuries” after the attack on Monday evening at an Assyrian Christian church in the west of Sydney.
“After consideration of all the material, I declared that it was a terrorist incident,” New South Wales police commissioner Karen Webb told a news conference.
Webb said the attack was deemed an act of religiously motivated “extremism” that intimidated the public — both parishioners at the church and people following the live-streamed service online.
The suspect was “known to the police” but was not on any terrorist watch list, Webb said.
Police responding to the incident soon found themselves under attack by angry people outside the church, she said.
“People used what was available to them in the area, including bricks, concrete, palings, to assault police and throw missiles at police and police equipment and police vehicles.”
Injured officers were taken to hospital overnight, Webb said, without giving figures.
The crowd damaged 20 police vehicles, she added.
“That is unacceptable and those that were involved in that riot can expect a knock at the door. It might not be today. It might not be tomorrow, but we will find you and we will come and arrest you,” Webb said.
Police say Sydney church stabbing a ‘terrorist’ act
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Police say Sydney church stabbing a ‘terrorist’ act
- A prominent bishop was among those being treated for “non-life threatening injuries” after the attack on Monday evening
Ethiopia’s prime minister accuses Eritrea of mass killings during Tigray war
- Landlocked Ethiopia says that Eritrea is arming rebel groups, while Eritrea says Ethiopia’s aspiration is to gain access to a seaport
- Ethiopia lost sovereign access to the Red Sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993 after decades of guerrilla warfare
ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia’s government Tuesday for the first time acknowledged the involvement of troops from neighboring Eritrea in the war in the Tigray region that ended in 2022, accusing them of mass killings, amid reports of renewed fighting in the region.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, while addressing parliament Tuesday, accused Eritrean troops fighting alongside Ethiopian forces of mass killings in the war, during which more than 400,000 people are estimated to have died.
Eritrean and Ethiopian troops fought against regional forces in the northern Tigray region in a war that ended in 2022 with the signing of a peace agreement.
Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel told The Associated Press that Ahmed’s comments were “cheap and despicable lies” and did not merit a response.
Both nations have been accusing each other of provoking a potential civil war, with landlocked Ethiopia saying that Eritrea is arming and funding rebel groups, while Eritrea says Ethiopia’s aspiration is to gain access to a seaport.
“The rift did not begin with the Red Sea issue, as many people think,” Ahmed told parliamentarians. “It started in the first round of the war in Tigray, when the Eritrean army followed us into Shire and began demolishing houses, massacred our youth in Axum, looted factories in Adwa, and uprooted our factories.”
“The Red Sea and Ethiopia cannot remain separated forever,” he added.
Ethiopia lost sovereign access to the Red Sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993 after decades of guerrilla warfare.
Gebremeskel said the prime minister has only recently changed his tune in his push for access to the Red Sea.
Ahmed “and his top military brass were profusely showering praises and State Medals on the Eritrea army and its senior officers. … But when he later developed the delusional malaise of ‘sovereignty access to the sea’ and an agenda of war against Eritrea, he began to sing to a different chorus,” he said.
Eritrea and Ethiopia initially made peace after Abiy came to power in 2018, with Abiy winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts toward reconciliation.
In June, Eritrea accused Ethiopia of having a “long-brewing war agenda” aimed at seizing its Red Sea ports. Ethiopia recently said that Eritrea was “actively preparing to wage war against it.”
Analysts say an alliance between Eritrea and regional forces in the troubled Tigray region may be forming, as fighting has been reported in recent weeks. Flights by the national carrier to the region were canceled last week over the renewed clashes.
