[ad_1]
MELBOURNE, Australia – A man armed with a knife was shot dead by police in Melbourne on Friday after stabbing three people and killing one, in what the authorities described as a terrorist attack.
According to witnesses, the man got out of a vehicle, which caught fire shortly after 16 hours. Police said that there were gas cylinders in the vehicle. The man then began attacking pedestrians on Bourke Street, a bustling shopping street in downtown Melbourne.
When officers arrived at the scene, they were confronted with the man holding up a bloody knife. A video of the confrontation, which circulated on social media, shows a civilian passerby trying to help the police by repeatedly pushing a shopping cart on the man.
"Someone shouted," I think he's got a knife. "
The officers finally fired at the man in the chest and arrested him. The man, whose identity was not revealed, was rushed to the hospital, where he died about 30 minutes later, police said.
"We treat this as a terrorist incident," said Graham Ashton, chief commissioner of the Victoria Police, at a press conference. He said that the man born in Somalia had been known to the police.
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, Reuters reported, without the group providing evidence.
The names and ages of the victims, who were all men, have not yet been published.
Knives are the most common weapon used in homicides in Australia, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, a government agency. In 2015, the last year for which complete data are available, 30% of all killings in Australia involved knives, as did 26% of attempted murders.
The incident occurred less than two years after an attack on the same street, in which a man struck his car against a crowd, killing six people and at least thirty pedestrians. His trial is underway this week in the Supreme Court of Victoria.
"As a city, we will not be defined by this evil act," Victoria Prime Minister Daniel Andrews said Friday. "We will take care of our business this weekend and every weekend."
