The Latest: Australian police: stabbing linked to terrorism

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SYDNEY (AP) — The Latest on a knife attack in Melbourne (all times local):

8:45 p.m.

Australian police say they believe an attack by a knife-wielding man who stabbed two people, one fatally, in the country’s second-largest city is linked to terrorism.

The attack during the Friday afternoon rush hour brought central Melbourne to a standstill.

Police said the man got out of a vehicle, which then caught fire, and attacked three bystanders with a knife before being shot by police. The suspect died later at a hospital.

Victoria state police Commissioner Graham Ashton says the suspect, who was originally from Somalia, was known to police and the incident is being treated as terrorism.

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7:30 p.m.

Police shot a knife-wielding man Friday after he fatally stabbed one person and injured two others in the center of Australia’s second-largest city, police said.

The incident, which brought central Melbourne to a standstill in the late afternoon rush, came after police responded to reports of a burning vehicle.

Officers were confronted near the burning car by a man “brandishing a knife and threatening them” while passers-by called out that people had been stabbed, Victoria state police Superintendent David Clayton said.

One of the stabbed people was dead at the scene and two others were taken to a hospital.

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