A man who set a car on fire and stabbed three people – one fatally – in the Australian city of Melbourne has died in hospital after being shot by police.<\/p>\n
Authorities now say they are treating the attack as a terror-related.<\/p>\n
The attacker was shot after confronting officers on a busy city street, authorities said. He was taken into custody in a critical condition.<\/p>\n
The two survivors are in hospital, one reportedly in a critical condition. The suspect has not been named.<\/p>\n
Police said they were “not looking for anyone further at this early stage”.<\/p>\n
“We don’t believe there is an ongoing threat at this stage, but certainly we are treating it as a terrorism incident,” said Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton.<\/p>\n
He said the suspect was “someone that is known to us”. Police say the man was of Somali origin and had been travelling in a vehicle packed with gas cylinders which caught fire.<\/p>\n
Officers were initially called to reports of a car fire near Bourke Street, a busy thoroughfare, at about 16:20 local time (05:20 GMT).<\/p>\n
“As they got out of the car, they were confronted by a male brandishing a knife and threatening them,” Supt David Clayton said in a news conference.<\/p>\n
“At the same time, passers-by were calling out that members of the public had been stabbed.”<\/p>\n
Police said the scene had been cordoned off, and it was being “made safe” by a bomb response unit.<\/p>\n
Footage circulating on social media shows a vehicle, which appears to have crashed into shop fronts, on fire.<\/p>\n
The police and State Premier Daniel Andrews asked people to avoid the area.<\/p>\n
The incident comes as a man is on trial for a 2017 attack on the same street which left six people dead.<\/a><\/p>\n James Gargasoulas is accused of deliberately driving his car into pedestrians on Bourke Street, hitting 33 people.<\/p>\n His defence barrister has said he was in a drug-induced psychosis at the time.<\/p>\n Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"