Melbourne stabbing was a terrorist attack - police

Australian Police say the attacker, who died in hospital after being shot, was known to them and they are treating the case as terrorism.

A man stabbed three people in the Australian city of Melbourne on Friday killing one, before being shot and wounded by police.

Graham Ashton, the chief commissioner of Victoria police, said the attacker was known to police and federal intelligence agencies.

Ashton said the man had history of a minor drug, theft and driving offences, lived in Melbourne’s north-western suburbs and came to Australia from Somalia in the 1990s.

“You got to get through it. You got to just pick yourself up and continue on. And it’s kind of hard thing. It shouldn’t happen, but it does,” said local resident.

Security official said they had initially responded to a car on fire. The bomb response unit has been called in and the streets closed to the public.

Two videos obtained by Reuters show a car in flames on a street and emergency vehicles arriving.

“There’s police everywhere. This is insane,” nearby resident Jack Lovel was heard saying in one of the videos show from his bedroom window.

Melbourne Bourke Street attack: assailant, one stabbing victim dead in 'terrorism incident'https://t.co/UpWOtRB9U4

— BAYGUI (@baygui) November 9, 2018

The street where the car caught fire was the scene in January 2017 of a fatal but not terror-related incident in which a man drove his car at pedestrians at high speed, killing six people and wounding about 30.