Australian police seized petrol bombs, knives and iron bars around Sydney beaches on Sunday, along with mobile phones used to spread racist messages, in a huge security operation to prevent fresh inter-communal violence.
Police put an extra 500 police on the beaches of Australia's biggest city, taking the total cordon to about 2,000.
Officers patrolled on horseback and set up checkpoints around some of Sydney's favorite summer playgrounds, including Bondi Beach, where a peaceful holiday mood was edged by fears of fresh violence between whites and ethnic Lebanese.
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The unrest revealed tensions between Sydney's territorial surfing sub-culture, united in surfing shorts and wrap-around sunglasses, and ethnic Lebanese youths from poorer western Sydney who have become regular beachgoers.
"We got a text message from our boys to come down today, but we don't want any trouble," said a young ethnic Lebanese man, Ahmad, who wore a camouflage baseball cap backwards and long baggy shorts with a mobile phone clipped to them. From Punchbowl, an inland suburb of mainly Lebanese immigrants, Ahmad showed the text message: "All Arabs unite to let the Aussies know we can't be pushed around."
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