Muslims Become Victims of Retaliation Attacks

A school bus carrying Muslim children was stoned and vandals tried to set fire to a Lebanese church in apparent acts of retaliation for terrorist attacks in the United States, Australian officials said.

Queensland state Islamic Council Chairman Sultan Deen said stones and bottles damaged the side of the bus Wednesday in the northeastern city of Brisbane. Nobody was injured.

“The children are quite shaken up,” Deen said.

In Sydney overnight, vandals attempted to set fire to St. Mary’s Antiochian Orthodox Church, which has a Lebanese congregation, and racist slurs and swastikas were scrawled on the walls of another Lebanese church, police inspector Norm Russell said.