Connect with us

Published

on

A man, inspired by ISIS ideology, who stabbed at least six people in a supermarket was a “violent extremist” known to the police, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said.

The man was shot and killed by police within 60 seconds of beginning his attack at a Countdown store in Auckland.

The man was a Sri Lankan national and had been living in New Zealand since 2011.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

NZ PM on ‘known threat’ attacker

“A violent extremist undertook a terrorist attack on innocent New Zealanders,” Jacinda Ardern told a briefing on Friday.

The man cannot be named due to a suppression order currently in place.

He had been known to multiple agencies since 2016, with Ms Ardern confirming she had been personally aware of the individual – adding that she was gutted to hear what had happened.

She said: “This was someone who was known to our national security agencies and was of concern and was being monitored constantly. There are very few that fall into this category.”

More on Jacinda Ardern

Police following the man thought he had gone into the New Lynn supermarket to do some shopping, but he pulled out what one witness described as a large knife and started stabbing people.

New Zealand, Auckland attack.- Police at the scene
Image:
The attacker was known to police

“There’s someone here with a knife … he’s got a knife,” a woman is heard saying in one video, posted online after the attack.

Another recorded the sound of ten shots being fired in rapid succession.

A police officer stands outside an Auckland supermarket -   New Zealand authorities said Friday they shot and killed a violent extremist after he entered a supermarket and stabbed and injured several shoppers. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described the incident as a terror attack. 
PIC:New Zealand Herald/AP
Image:
An injured woman is led away from the supermarket following the attack

“We were doing absolutely everything possible to monitor him and indeed the fact that we were able to intervene so quickly, in roughly 60 seconds, shows just how closely we were watching him,” Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said.

Described as a “lone wolf”, Ms Ardern said the attacker was a “supporter of ISIS” and inspired by extremist ideology.

The man was not allowed to be kept in prison by law, she said.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

NZ police patrol site of terror attack

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

NZ terror attack witness ‘lucky to even be here’

Of the six wounded people, three were in critical condition, one in serious condition and another in moderate condition, the St John Ambulance Service said in a statement to Reuters.

Ms Ardern said any backlash against the Muslim community “would be wrong”, and said the attacker “is who is responsible, no one else”.

“What happened today was despicable, it was hateful, it was wrong. It was carried out by an individual, not a faith,” she added.

The security in the country will remain at a medium level.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addresses a press conference following the Auckland supermarket terror attack at parliament in Wellington, New Zealand, Friday, Sept. 3, 2021. New Zealand authorities say they shot and killed a violent extremist after he entered a supermarket and stabbed and injured six shoppers. Ardern described Friday's incident as a terror attack. (Robert Kitchin/Pool Photo via AP)
Image:
Jacinda Ardern said she had personally known of the attacker. Pic: AP

New Zealand has been on alert for attacks since a white supremacist gunman killed 51 people at two mosques in the city of Christchurch on March 15, 2019. In May, four people were stabbed in a supermarket in Dunedin on New Zealand’s South Island.

Auckland is on a strict lockdown as it battles an outbreak of the coronavirus. Most businesses are shut and people are generally only allowed to leave their homes to buy groceries, for medical needs, or to exercise.

Continue Reading

World

Israel’s PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Published

on

By

Israel's PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Israel’s prime minister added more detail to his deeply controversial plans for military escalation in Gaza at a news conference with foreign media yesterday – despite the condemnation of the UN Security Council, which met in an emergency session and urged him to rethink.

Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a “fairly short timetable” to establish designated “safe zones” for the one million or so set to be displaced from Gaza City.

He also vowed to seize and dismantle Hamas’s final strongholds there – in the central refugee camps, and in al Mawasi, along Gaza’s southwestern coast.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Rare aerial footage shows scale of destruction in Gaza

This, per Netanyahu, is the only way to destroy the terror group, which he claimed “subjugates Gazans, steals their food and shoots them when they try to move to safety”.

Al Mawasi is already home to a significant displaced population, most of whom live in tents cramped up against the Mediterranean Sea, in what is already a designated humanitarian zone.

If members of Hamas live among them, rooting them out will be hugely complicated and will involve significant civilian casualties. If the residents of Gaza City can’t evacuate south to al Mawasi, where will they go?

Netanyahu’s plan is to set up more aid distribution sites through the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and to flood Gaza with food.

More on Benjamin Netanyahu

He claimed his policy was not one of forced starvation – describing particular photos of starving babies as “fake news”, and accusing the media of painting a false picture.

“The only ones who are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages,” the prime minister claimed.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

‘We suffer greatly’: Life in Gaza gets harder

I asked Netanyahu how he would go about preventing the kinds of daily killings taking place at aid distribution points in the months since GHF has been operating.

Doctors Without Borders has described these incidents as deliberately orchestrated.

The prime minister said increasing the amount of aid heading into the Strip was the answer.

“And by the way, a lot of the firing was done by Hamas seeking to have a response by our forces,” he added. “And very often they didn’t, they held back. They stayed their own fire even though their own lives were on the line.”

Read more:
Israeli soldier dies by suicide
The danger of aid airdrops revealed

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Gaza: Aid drops ‘killing our children’

This was Israel’s prime minister trying to get on the front foot in a propaganda war he acknowledged he was losing. He was loath to admit the presence of famine in Gaza.

It took two questions before he acknowledged there was “deprivation”, even if he would not be drawn on whether his 11-week total blockade of the strip earlier this year had played any role.

Follow The World
Follow The World

Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday

Tap to follow

He recognises that the appalled response of the international community to the human cost of this war, and the accusations of war crimes and genocide which Israel so vehemently rejects, are a terrible look.

This was his attempt to reclaim the narrative.

Continue Reading

World

Defiant Netanyahu sets out plan for military escalation in Gaza – and describes photographs of starving babies as ‘fake news’

Published

on

By

Israel's PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Israel’s prime minister added more detail to his deeply controversial plans for military escalation in Gaza at a news conference with foreign media yesterday – despite the condemnation of the UN Security Council, which met in an emergency session and urged him to rethink.

Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a “fairly short timetable” to establish designated “safe zones” for the one million or so set to be displaced from Gaza City.

He also vowed to seize and dismantle Hamas’s final strongholds there – in the central refugee camps, and in al Mawasi, along Gaza’s southwestern coast.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Rare aerial footage shows scale of destruction in Gaza

This, per Netanyahu, is the only way to destroy the terror group, which he claimed “subjugates Gazans, steals their food and shoots them when they try to move to safety”.

Al Mawasi is already home to a significant displaced population, most of whom live in tents cramped up against the Mediterranean Sea, in what is already a designated humanitarian zone.

If members of Hamas live among them, rooting them out will be hugely complicated and will involve significant civilian casualties. If the residents of Gaza City can’t evacuate south to al Mawasi, where will they go?

Netanyahu’s plan is to set up more aid distribution sites through the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and to flood Gaza with food.

More on Benjamin Netanyahu

He claimed his policy was not one of forced starvation – describing particular photos of starving babies as “fake news”, and accusing the media of painting a false picture.

“The only ones who are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages,” the prime minister claimed.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

‘We suffer greatly’: Life in Gaza gets harder

I asked Netanyahu how he would go about preventing the kinds of daily killings taking place at aid distribution points in the months since GHF has been operating.

Doctors Without Borders has described these incidents as deliberately orchestrated.

The prime minister said increasing the amount of aid heading into the Strip was the answer.

“And by the way, a lot of the firing was done by Hamas seeking to have a response by our forces,” he added. “And very often they didn’t, they held back. They stayed their own fire even though their own lives were on the line.”

Read more:
Israeli soldier dies by suicide
The danger of aid airdrops revealed

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Gaza: Aid drops ‘killing our children’

This was Israel’s prime minister trying to get on the front foot in a propaganda war he acknowledged he was losing. He was loath to admit the presence of famine in Gaza.

It took two questions before he acknowledged there was “deprivation”, even if he would not be drawn on whether his 11-week total blockade of the strip earlier this year had played any role.

Follow The World
Follow The World

Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday

Tap to follow

He recognises that the appalled response of the international community to the human cost of this war, and the accusations of war crimes and genocide which Israel so vehemently rejects, are a terrible look.

This was his attempt to reclaim the narrative.

Continue Reading

World

Journalist killed in Israeli strike feared his own assassination – as IDF claims he was a ‘terrorist’

Published

on

By

Journalist killed in Israeli strike feared his own assassination - as IDF claims he was a 'terrorist'

Five Al Jazeera journalists have been killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza – including a reporter who feared he was going to be assassinated.

Anas al Sharif died alongside four of his colleagues from the network: Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) had recently expressed “grave” concerns about al Sharif’s safety, and claimed he was “being targeted by an Israeli military smear campaign”.

Gazan journalist Anas al Sharif with his two children
Image:
Gazan journalist Anas al Sharif with his two children

Israel Defence Forces confirmed the strike – and alleged al Sharif was a “terrorist” who “served as the head of a terrorist cell in the Hamas terrorist organisation”.

It claimed he was “responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops”.

Last month, the reporter had said he lived with “the feeling that I could be bombed and martyred at any moment” because his coverage of Israel’s operations “harms them and damages their image in the world”.

As of 5 August, at least 186 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza – but foreign reporters have been barred from covering the war independently since the latest conflict began in 2023.

Gazan journalists Anas al Sharif and Mohammad Qreiqe
Image:
Gazan journalists Anas al Sharif and Mohammad Qreiqe

The Hamas-run government has described Israel’s killing of these five Al Jazeera journalists as “brutal and heinous”.

A statement added: “The assassination was premeditated and deliberate, following a deliberate, direct targeting of the journalists’ tent near al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

“The targeting of journalists and media institutions by Israeli aircraft is a full-fledged war crime aimed at silencing the truth and obliterating the traces of genocidal crimes.”

Read more:
Netanyahu vows to defeat Hamas
UK joins four countries in condemning Israel’s plan for new Gaza operation

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Inside the room with Netanyahu

Following Anas al Sharif’s death, a post described as his “last will and testament” was posted on X.

It read: “If these words of mine reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.”

The 28-year-old added that he laments being able to fulfil his dream of seeing his son and daughter grow up – and alleged he had witnessed children “crushed by thousands of tonnes of Israeli bombs and missiles”.

“Do not forget Gaza … and do not forget me in your prayers for forgiveness and acceptance,” he wrote.

Follow The World
Follow The World

Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday

Tap to follow

The CPJ reported that his father was killed by an Israeli airstrike on their family home in December 2023 after the journalist received telephone threats from Israeli army officers instructing him to cease coverage.

Israel shut down the Al Jazeera television network in the country in May last year.

Continue Reading

Trending