Australian Teenager’s Attack on Police Worker Called Act of Terrorism

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/world/asia/australian-teenagers-attack-on-police-worker-called-act-of-terrorism.html

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SYDNEY, Australia — A 15-year-old boy fatally shot a civilian police employee in a Sydney suburb on Friday and was killed by responding officers, the New South Wales police commissioner said, describing the boy’s act as terrorism.

The teenager, who was of Iraqi-Kurdish descent and was born in Iran, killed Curtis Cheng, a 17-year employee of the New South Wales Police Force who worked in the finance department, Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said at a news conference on Saturday.

The shooting took place just after 4:30 p.m. on Friday outside Police Headquarters in Parramatta, a western Sydney suburb, as Mr. Cheng left work. Police officers responding to the shooting said the teenager fired shots. The officers then shot and killed him. The police have not yet made his name public.

“We are a long way from establishing a full picture of this man, his exact motivations still remain a mystery to us,” Mr. Scipione said at the news conference, held with the state’s premier, Mike Baird. “We believe his actions were politically motivated and therefore linked to terrorism.”

Mr. Scipione said the boy had no criminal record. “We have no information that this individual posed this type of threat,” he said, adding the teenager was not under police surveillance.

The police in Australia have been on high alert since a lone gunman took hostages in a cafe in central Sydney in December last year. Three people, including the gunman, were killed after a siege that lasted more than 16 hours.

Since then, the police have arrested and charged several people with plotting to commit acts of terrorism, including an attack planned for Anzac Day, a national holiday on April 25. A 15-year-old British boy was convicted in that case and sentenced Friday to at least five years in prison for plotting with accomplices in Australia to kill police officers during the holiday parade.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of Australia said at a news conference on Saturday that Friday’s shooting was shocking. “It was a coldblooded murder, targeting the New South Wales’ police service,” Mr. Turnbull said in Melbourne. “It was doubly shocking because it was perpetrated by a 15-year-old boy.”

“The issue of radicalization, particularly of young people — as young as 15 in this case — is a very, very complex one,” Mr. Turnbull said. “It is very challenging to understand the rapid pace of radicalization in a very, very, small number of individuals, who nonetheless can do great harm to others.”

Mr. Baird and Mr. Scipione urged Australians to go about their lives as usual. “We cannot let actions such as this divide us,” Mr. Baird said. “We cannot let hate overtake us. We have to come together.”