‘Nazi’ attacks indigenous woman and her daughter in Australia with an improvised flamethrower

A composite image of the attacker, who had a white Swastika painted backwards on his forehead, has been released

A manhunt is underway after a man emblazoned with a swastika used an improvised flamethrower to attack an Aboriginal woman and her daughter in Australia. 

On Tuesday police in Perth, Western Australia, released a composite image of the man showing a white Nazi symbol painted backwards on his face at the time of the attack.

The man was also captured by security cameras in the area dressed almost entirely in black, with the exception of what appeared to be an oversized red neck tie adorned with several white swastikas.

At around 6.20pm on Saturday in the southern Perth suburb of Gosnells, the attacker approached the 40-year-old woman and her 15-year-old daughter, shouting racist abuse before using a deodorant can and cigarette lighter to spray fire at them.

The woman sustained minor burns to her arm and the attacker fled on foot.

Detective Senior Sergeant Sean Bell, of the State Security Investigation Group, said police were treating the attack as racially motivated, and described the assault as “atrocious”.

Det. Snr. Sgt. Bell said the flamethrower attack was “random and cowardly”, targetting a mother and daughter who were “simply going about their daily business”.

“The potential for serious injury was definitely there, it was just fortunate enough he didn’t get close enough to do that,” he said. 

“Any assault on a mother and her daughter simply going about their lawful business trying to get something to eat for dinner is atrocious… When you add in the racial element it is certainly not tolerated by society and we treat it very, very seriously.

Det. Snr. Sgt. Bell added that all available resources have been allocated to track down the man. 

“Someone in the community knows who this person is and we are asking that member of the community to contact us and assist in identifying this person,” he told a media conference on Tuesday.

Police said there was nothing at this stage to link the man to a specific Neo Nazi gang or a white supremacist group, but investigations are ongoing.