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Man charged with committing terrorist attack, attempted murder in Australia

Xinhua, September 11, 2016 Adjust font size:

A man inspired by the Islamic State has been charged with committing a terrorist attack as well as an attempted murder of a 59-year-old man in Sydney, Australia.

New South Wales police said the man was charged on Sunday after another man was found with multiple stab wounds outside a home at Minto in Sydney's West.

The attack took place on Saturday afternoon.

The victim and the man were not known to each other. The injured was treated at the scene by paramedics before he was flown by helicopter to Liverpool hospital. Police said the victim's condition is reported to be serious but improving.

"When police from Macquarie Fields arrived at the scene, attempts were allegedly made to stab an officer through a window before a 22-year-old man was placed under arrest," police said in a statement.

Police said the Joint Counter Terrorism team, comprising the NSW Police Force and the Australian Federal Police, has been investigating the incident together with Macquarie Fields Local Area Command.

NSW Police Force Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burn in a press conference on Sunday said the man had no connection to terrorist groups although he was known to authorities prior to the attack.

"The person is still before the courts and we will find out a lot more as the days go on with the investigation if there was a direct link, but this is the sad reality," Burn said.

Burn said the man had been on the police watch list but was not someone who was at the "front and center" of their work at the moment.

The man's arrest comes after an 18-year-old teenager was charged for making alleged terror threats at the Sydney Opera House forecourt on Friday.

Both of these arrests come just days after an Islamic State linked online magazine called "Rumaiyah" published a graphic and detailed instructions to its followers to carry out lone wolf terror attacks in Sydney and Melbourne.

To date, Australian authorities have conducted 16 counter-terror operations since 2014, arresting 44 alleged home-grown terrorists. Endit