Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said an attacker stabbed six people at a New Zealand supermarket on Friday before police shot her.
Police and ambulance workers participate in a scene outside an Auckland supermarket on Friday. (AP)
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said an attacker inspired by the Islamic State group stabbed six people at a New Zealand supermarket on Friday after the man was shot dead under police surveillance.
Ardern said a Sri Lankan national, who came to New Zealand in 2011 and was on a terror watch list, entered a shopping mall in suburban Auckland, seized a knife from a demonstration and went on a stabbing spree.
She said that six people were injured, three seriously, as the police keeping an eye on her opened fire within 60 seconds of the start of the attack.
“What happened today was disgusting, it was disgusting, it was wrong,” he said, adding that it was not representative of any religion or community.
Asked about the man’s motives, she said: “It was inspired by a violent ideology and ISIS”, using another name for the Islamic State group.
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Ardern said she was limited in what she could say publicly about the man, who had been under observation since 2016, as he was the subject of court repression orders.
Police Commissioner Andrew Koster said officers were confident the man was acting alone and that there was no further threat to the community.
New Zealand’s biggest terror attack was the Christchurch mosques shootings in March 2019, when a white supremacist gunman killed 51 Muslim worshipers and seriously injured 40 others.
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