Raids On 5 June 2017, Yacqub Khayre, a 29-year-old Somali-born Australian, murdered a receptionist and held a sex worker hostage at the Buckingham International Serviced Apartments, located in Brighton, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia.
[5] Specialist police were called in: the Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT) arrived first, followed by the Special Operations Group (SOG) who took over tactical command.
He subsequently dropped out of school and began using drugs and alcohol, including ice to which he became addicted, and started committing criminal offences.
[11] In April 2009, he travelled back to Somalia, where he is alleged to have undertaken military training with the militant Islamist group Al-Shabaab, with a view to participating in Somali insurgency against that country's government.
[12][13] Whilst in Somalia, he successfully sought from a sheikh a fatwa, a religious order, that police alleged was to authorise a terrorist attack in Australia.
[11] In 2012, he committed a home invasion for which he was sentenced to five years imprisonment and was released on parole in December 2016 (he set two fires whilst in prison).
[3][18] The Islamic Council of Victoria described it as a "horrendous crime" and stated they understand "that the police are investigating this as a potential terrorist attack but note that the perpetrator himself appeared to be confused as to who he was acting on behalf, claiming allegiance to both ISIS and al-Qaeda, known enemies.
"[19] On 16 June 2017, the Minister for Justice Michael Keenan announced that following recent events that a national firearms amnesty would commence on 1 July 2017 to hand in unregistered or unwanted firearms stating the national security environment had deteriorated with terror attacks using illegal guns including the shooting of Curtis Cheng in 2015 and the Lindt Cafe siege in 2014.