Australia's Most Violent Racial Incident

Yesterday, Australia witnessed one of its largest racist incidents, 5,000 thousand white men attacking young Arabs near the Cronulla beach, Reuters reported.

The spark which reignited the 'racist fire', triggered by the terrorist attacks in the US and Bali, consisted in the rumors which said that two lifeguards were assaulted by the youths of Lebanese origins.

Following the incidents, Australian PM John Howard made an appeal for ethnic and religious tolerance.

"Mob violence is always sickening and always to be unconditionally condemned," Howard said during a news conference.

"Attacking people on the basis of race and ethnicity is totally unacceptable and should be repudiated by all Australians, irrespective of background and politics," he said.

The Cronulla beach violence also reached the Maroubra beach, where dozens of men armed with baseball bats destroyed approximately 100 cars.

The young hooligans were faced by police forces, who said that in a Sydney southern suburb a man was stabbed in the back by these racists.

According to the investigations carried out by the police, the cause for this riot was a group of Neo-Nazis who managed to stir many drunken men.

The racist incident comes one month after the Australian police arrested 17 Islamic extremists in Melbourne and Sydney who were stockpiling explosive chemicals for a major terrorist.

"We believe ... we've disrupted a large-scale operation which, had it been allowed to go through to fruition, we certainly believe would have been catastrophic", New South Wales State Police Commissioner Ken Moroney told Australian television at the time.