Wellington: New Zealand authorities shot dead an IS-inspired man within 60 seconds of him unleashing a frenzied knife attack that wounded six people at an Auckland supermarket last week. Three of the shoppers were taken to Auckland hospitals in critical condition, police said. Another was in serious condition, while two others were in moderate condition.
PM Jacinda Ardern said it was a terror attack. She said the man was a Sri Lankan national who was inspired by the IS group and was well known to the nation’s security agencies. Ardern said she had been personally briefed on the man in the past but there had been no legal reason for him to be detained. “Had he done something that would have allowed us to put him into prison, he would have been in prison,” Ardern said.
The attack unfolded at a Countdown supermarket in New Zealand’s largest city. Police commissioner Andrew Coster said a police surveillance team and a specialist tactics group had followed the man from his home to the supermarket. The man appeared to be going into the store to do his grocery shopping. “He entered the store, as he had done before. He obtained a knife from within the store,” Coster said.
Witnesses said the man shouted “Allahu akbar” and started stabbing random shoppers. Coster said that when the commotion started, two policemen from the special tactics group rushed over. He said the man charged at the officers with the knife and so they shot and killed him.
Ardern said the man had first moved to New Zealand in 2011 and had been monitored by security agencies since 2016. She said authorities are confident he acted alone in the attack. Extremist ideology is rare in New Zealand. In 2019, a white supremacist gunned down worshippers at two Christchurch mosques, killing 51.
