Emergency services said four people are being treated for \u201cnon-life threatening injuries\u201d after an apparent stabbing at a church service in Sydney on Monday. The incident comes just two days after a knife rampage in an eastern Sydney shopping mall killed six people. A live stream showed Monday\u2019s gruesome attack, which took place during a service at an Assyrian church in the west of the city. The video showed a man dressed in black approaching a bishop at the dais, raising his right arm and slashing at the preacher with a knife, prompting panic and screams among the congregation. Several people appeared to rush to help subdue the attacker. Officers arrested a male and he is assisting police with inquiries, a police statement said. The injured people suffered non-life-threatening injuries and were being treated by paramedics, police said. The ambulance service told AFP that four men aged between 20 and 70 were being treated for injuries, including lacerations. Local media said the incident occurred at the Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Sydney\u2019s western suburb of Wakeley. The neighbourhood is a hub for Sydney\u2019s small Christian Assyrian community, many of whom fled persecution and war in Iraq and Syria. The church holds a prayer session every Monday evening. Police said they began to receive emergency calls from the scene \u201cabout 7:10pm\u201d. They urged the public to avoid the area. This is the second stabbing incident in Sydney after six people were killed in a knife attack at a mall in Sydney\u2019s Bondi area on Saturday. The man may have targeted women, police said earlier today, as the attacker\u2019s father opened up about his son\u2019s long history of mental illness and frustrations with women. Clad in shorts and an Australian national rugby league jersey, Joel Cauchi, 40, roamed through the busy Westfield Bondi Junction on Saturday with a large knife. Five of the six people he killed were women as were the majority of the 12 injured. He was shot to death by Inspector Amy Scott, who confronted him alone on the fifth floor after a pursuit through the mall. The attacker\u2019s father, Andrew Cauchi, told reporters today he was devastated by the news and said his son had a long history of mental illness and frustrations with women. \u201cHe wanted a girlfriend and he has no social skills and he was frustrated out of his brain,\u201d he said in comments reported by The Australian newspaper. Andrew said he had taken five US army knives from Joel when Joel visited him last year as he feared he could get stabbed. The comments came hours after senior police officers said they were investigating the possibility the attacker had focused on women. \u201cIt\u2019s obvious to me, it\u2019s obvious to detectives that seems to be an area of interest that the offender had focused on women and avoided the men,\u201d New South Wales state Police Commissioner Karen Webb told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. \u201cThe videos speak for themselves, don\u2019t they? That\u2019s certainly a line for inquiry for us.\u201d Police have said there was no indication ideology was a motive. The only man killed during the attack was a 30-year-old security guard, Faraz Tahir, who had arrived in Australia last year as a refugee from Pakistan, according to the Ahmadi community of Australia, to which he belonged. Authorities earlier today identified the sixth victim as Chinese national Yixuan Cheng who was studying in the country. The New South Wales government also announced an A$18 million ($12m) independent coronial inquest into the attack but Premier Chris Minns ruled out new rules that would allow private security guards to carry firearms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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