The deadly hostage drama staged by an Iranian-born gunman at a café in Australia should shock nobody — and the world must brace for more random terror attacks, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik says.
"Nobody should be surprised by this incident, no one. If you're surprised … be it Australia, Britain, [or] here in the United States, then you've been walking around with your head in the sand the last 13 years," Kerik said Monday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
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"These types of things are going to happen. They're going to happen all over the world, especially where there are soft targets, especially where there are Westerners … where there are Christians and Jews and people that have been targeted by jihadists. It's going to happen.
"We’ve seen several attempts already, 13 attempts in New York City, plus these lone-wolf recent attacks."
The siege in Sydney ended during a pre-dawn operation in which heavily armed police stormed the Lindt Chocolat Cafe. A man, 34, and woman, 38, were killed as well as the hostage-taker, identified as Man Haron Monis, 50, a self-styled Muslim cleric, who is said to have been carrying a gun and a machete.
His motives remain unclear, although last year he was convicted of sending hate mail to families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan. In addition, cops had linked him to the death of his ex-wife.
"Police did the best job they could … There was something that was in their mind that they wanted to pre-empt possibly murder or something else, so they had to act," Kerik said.
"Unfortunately, as happens with scenarios like this sometimes, two of the hostages were killed, which is tragic. But the shooter's dead and he won't be able to do this again."
Kerik said law enforcers try to tire out hostage-takers before launching a rescue mission.
"What you want to do is you sort of want to wear them down, keep them on the phone, keep them occupied, keep them thinking and wear them out, tire them out as much as you can before you make an entry like this," he said.
"They were quite familiar with this guy, from what I understand. He had sent threat letters … to the families of Australian military personnel that were involved in the Middle East.
"So, I'm sure they had some intel on him that they were using when they made the decisions on what they were going to do."
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