“This afternoon, at approximately 2:40pm, a violent extremist undertook a terrorist attack on innocent New Zealanders in the New Lynn Countdown [supermarket] in Auckland,” Ardern said at a press conference.
The suspect was a known threat to authorities and under constant monitoring, she added.
Ardern said the terrorist was a Sri Lankan national who arrived in the country in 2011 and became a person of national security interest from 2016. She described the attacker as an ISIS-inspired “lone wolf.”
The PM confirmed that the terrorist injured six people, three of them seriously, on a stabbing rampage inside a supermarket in New Lynn, a suburb of Auckland. The terrorist was shot and killed roughly 60 seconds later by the same police unit that was tasked with monitoring him, Ardern said.
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