Gangs of youths, mainly Muslim and from Middle East backgrounds, attacked several people with baseball bats, vandalised cars and had running skirmishes with police, they said.
SYDNEY: A second night of unrest in Australia's biggest city Sydney left seven people injured and dozens of cars damaged in apparent reprisal for racial violence on a city beach at the weekend, police said on Tuesday.
Gangs of youths, mainly Muslim and from Middle East backgrounds, attacked several people with baseball bats, vandalised cars and had running skirmishes with police, they said.
At one beach, Maroubra, police said they found 30 Molotov cocktails and crates of rocks stockpiled on rooftops along the beach's main road.
"Eleven men were arrested and seven people, including a police officer, were injured in a second night of unrest," police said on Tuesday.
Racial violence erupted at Sydney's Cronulla Beach on Sunday when some 5,000 people, some yelling racist chants, attacked youths of Middle Eastern background. Drunk and angry mobs of youths, some wrapped in Australian flags, said they were defending their beach after lifesavers were attacked there last week. They believe the attackers were of Lebanese background.
Police said white supremacists had incited the Cronulla crowd to violence. Sydney's Lebanese youths struck back on Sunday night, smashing cars, assaulting people and fighting police in several different suburbs.
On Monday night hundreds of Muslims staged an angry standoff with police outside Sydney's main mosque at Lakemba. Up to 25 cars with youths then drove to Cronulla and used baseball bats to damage cars and smash windows, police said.
One man suffered head injuries after being attacked at a youth hostel, while another suffered broken ribs and head injuries after he was attacked while putting out his garbage bins. Local media reported that mobile telephone text messages circulating amongst Muslim youths were calling for payback for the violence on Sunday.
At Maroubra Beach in the city's east, hundreds of local surfers gathered, angry that Muslim youths raided their beach on Sunday night, vandalising some 10 cars and attacking people.
Police said a sweep of the beach's main road uncovered more than 30 home-made petrol bombs and crates of rocks stockpiled.
Prime Minister John Howard has called for ethnic and religious tolerance and stressed that Australia was not a racist nation.
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