A fire which ripped through Melbourne\u2019s Adass Israel synagogue is being treated as a likely terror attack, Australian police say.<\/p>\n
Three suspects are being hunted over Friday\u2019s early-morning blaze, which left one man with a minor burn to his hand and caused extensive damage.<\/p>\n
Witnesses say they saw masked figures spreading what appeared to be an accelerant in the building, before setting it alight.<\/p>\n
Victoria Police say they have no evidence that further antisemitic attacks are planned, but patrols are being increased to reassure the community.<\/p>\n
After a meeting with Australian Federal Police and domestic spy agency Asio, the state police force said additional \u201cintelligence\u201d had led them to conclude the incident should be treated as a probable terror attack.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Shane Patton said police had no information before the fire to suggest an arson attack was imminent.<\/p>\n
He declined to provide any further details on the investigation while it continued.<\/p>\n
Mr Patton\u2019s declaration came a day after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the incident as \u201cquite clearly terrorism\u201d while acknowledging police were still to make up their minds. He called his description a \u201cpersonal view\u201d.<\/p>\n
On Monday, state Premier Jacinta Allan said the terror designation meant police would now have extra resources for their investigation.<\/p>\n
Jewish community leaders have said they believe the attack is an escalation of a recent documented increase in antisemitism in Australia, and that it has heightened fears of violence.<\/p>\n
A few worshippers were inside the building at the time of the fire, and have described hearing banging and seeing a window smash, before liquids were thrown inside and lit on fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole thing took off pretty quickly,\u201d synagogue board member Benjamin Klein, who spoke to witnesses, told The Age newspaper.<\/p>\n
After officers at the scene were confronted by angry and scared worshippers on Friday, Mr Patton said police were focused on ensuring their safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have\u2026 extra police officers deployed in those areas where there are high numbers of Jewish persons living and congregating,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Allan also called for the city to rally behind its Jewish communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot let this conflict overseas continue to be a cloak for behaviour like [this].\u201d<\/p>\n
Albanese also on Monday announced a new federal strikeforce to investigate incidents of antisemitism.<\/p>\n
The prime minister said a special response was needed to combat the rising threat, pointing to two other recent incidents \u2013 the vandalism of a Jewish MP\u2019s office and an attack in Sydney in which a car was torched and buildings graffitied.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A fire which ripped through Melbourne\u2019s Adass Israel synagogue is being treated as a likely terror attack, Australian police say. Three suspects are being hunted over Friday\u2019s early-morning blaze, which left one man with a minor burn to his hand and caused extensive damage. Witnesses say they saw masked figures spreading what appeared to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}