Six people were injured in a knife attack in a New Zealand supermarket on Friday, AFP reported, citing Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. The attacker has been shot dead, she said.

The prime minister said that three residents have sustained critical injuries in the attack that took place in Auckland city.

“What happened today was despicable, it was hateful, it was wrong,” she said.

The prime minister said the man was inspired by the Islamic State, or ISIS, and was under surveillance since 2016 for his extremist views and sympathies with the terrorist group.

“The terrorist is a Sri Lankan national who arrived in [New Zealand in] 2011,” Ardern said.

Auckland Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said that the attacker was acting alone. The police were confident that there was no further threat to the public, he added, reported Reuters.

“We were doing absolutely everything possible to monitor him and indeed the fact that we were able to intervene so quickly, in roughly 60 seconds, shows just how closely we were watching him,” Coster said at a briefing.

New Zealand has been on alert for attacks since 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch were killed by a gunman on March 15, 2019.

On Friday, Ardern said it was not immediately clear if the attack was a revenge for the attack that occurred in 2019. She said that the man alone should be held responsible for the violence, and not other members of his community.