Race attacks in two Australian cities linked to Sydney riots

ATTACKS linked to two nights of race rioting in Sydney were reported in two other Australian cities yesterday, but an uneasy calm returned to the streets of Sydney.

As night fell, more than 450 police converged on the beachside suburb of Cronulla and stopped and searched dozens of cars.

But there were no arrests reported and no repeat of the previous night’s rampage in which dozens of cars full of young men of Arab appearance smashed store windows and cars in apparent retaliation for a race riot on Sunday in which 5,000 white men chanted racial slurs and attacked youths they believed were of Lebanese descent.

In an attempt to keep the peace, MPs will meet tomorrow to pass laws giving officers tough new powers to crack down on rioters, including ordering bars to shut and erecting road blocks to effectively seal off suburbs, New South Wales state leader Morris Iemma announced.

Meanwhile, attacks on a Middle Eastern family in the Western Australian state capital Perth and a Lebanese Australian taxi driver in Adelaide in South Australia state were linked to Sydney’s race violence.

And on the Gold Coast in Queensland state, text messages targeting ethnic groups have called for people to attend a demonstration on Sunday and to start “cracking skulls”, Australian Associated Press reported.