Islamic State has claimed responsibility for last night’s hostage situation in Melbourne.
Yacqub Khayre, a Somalian-born refugee who had previous terror links, murdered one man, took a woman hostage and wounded three police officers during a dramatic siege in a Brighton hotel in the early hours of Monday evening.
“The attack in Melbourne, Australia was carried out by a soldier of the Islamic State in response to the call for targeting the subjects of the coalition states,” the group’s Amaq news agency wrote, according to The Daily Mail.
Khayre, 29, was shot dead by police as they entered the building to free the hostage woman.
He was previously charged, and acquitted, with planning a suicide attack on Sydney’s Holsworthy army barracks in 2009 and then was jailed for three years after breaking into a Melbourne home with a knife while high on meth, the Herald Sun reports.
Moments before police shot him dead, Khayre called Channel 7’s newsroom to claim he was carrying out a terrorist attack on behalf of Islamic State and al-Qaeda.
The attack comes days after the London Bridge terror attack and exactly two weeks after the Manchester Arena bombing.
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