Police investigate Australian mosque shooting

SYDNEY, Sep 30 (Reuters) Police and Australia's top spy agency are investigating a drive-by shooting at a mosque in western Australia in which about 400 people were praying, officials said today.

A single shot was fired through a second-floor window of the mosque in a suburb of Perth, the Western Australian state capital, late yesterday, narrowly missing women and children, police said.

No one was injured and the bullet, said to have been fired from a high-powered rifle, lodged in a wall of the mosque. Witnesses said the shot had been fired from a four-wheel-drive vehicle which sped off after the shooting.

''This action is totally unacceptable and we'll put all our resources into trying to resolve the issue,'' acting police commissioner George Loverock told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) is joining state security officials and police in investigating the shooting, officials said.

Australia, a staunch US ally with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, has a small Muslim community of about 280,000, or about 1.5 per cent of the population.

Muslim clerics in Australia have agreed to deliver more sermons in English and set up a training programme for imams in a move aimed at stopping radical preachers from promoting violence.

Imams and Muslim community leaders have resolved to speak out more against violence and militancy and to better explain their religion to non-Muslims.

Conservative Prime Minister John Howard has regularly called on the Muslim community to do more to condemn radicalism, saying a small number were resisting integration in Australia and risked stoking religious fanaticism.

REUTERS SHB VV1617