Australia police say Dec shooting in Queensland was ‘religiously motivated terrorist attack’

ANKARA (AA): Australian police announced on Thursday that the attack on police in the northeastern state of Queensland in December 2022 was a terrorist attack motivated by Christian extremist ideology.

Police Deputy Commissioner Tracy Linford stated in a statement that Queensland’s Counter-Terrorism Investigative and Intelligence Unit had completed a thorough assessment of the perpetrators involved in the attack.

On Dec. 12, two police officers, Rachel McCrow, 29, and Matthew Arnold, 26 and a civilian were killed in a shootout at a property in Wieambilla, about 322 kilometers (200 miles) west of Brisbane.

Three suspected attackers were later killed in an operation by special forces.

Specialist teams have analyzed an extensive amount of evidential material, including diaries, books, and notes found at the scene, phone messages, emails, social media posts, witness statements, and body-worn camera footage, Linford said in the statement posted on the police department website.

She stated that the facts made it clear that the crime was motivated and that the perpetrators carried out a “religiously-motivated terrorist attack.”

“They were motivated by a Christian extremist ideology and subscribed to the broad Christian fundamentalist belief system known as Pre-Millennialism,” the police official said.

However, she added, there is no evidence that anyone else was also involved in carrying out the act.

*Writing by Islamuddin Sajid

[Map of Australia from CIA Factbook/Public Domain]

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