Sydney counter-terrorism raids: Renown Ave, the street at the centre of new arrests, well known to police

IT may be Renown Ave by name but it is infamous to police. Angry residents of the Wiley Park street in Sydney’s southwest have become all too familiar with heavily armed police.

Australian Khaled Sharrouf in Iraq.

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IT may be Renown Ave by name but it is infamous to police.

Angry residents of the Wiley Park street in Sydney’s southwest have become all too familiar with heavily armed police after being at the centre of two of Australia’s biggest counter-terrorism raids.

The latest instalment came on ­Saturday when a joint counter-terrorism operation, targeting an alleged plan to bomb a plane out of Sydney skies, raided a two-bedroom ground-floor unit, arresting a man who lived there with his brother.

Police in Renown Ave during the string of raids. Picture: Steve Tyson

Renown Ave in Wiley Park has been involved in several counter-terror raids in recent years.

The wide tree-lined street was first thrust into the spotlight in November 2005 when police simultaneously burst into a house and a block of flats, arresting three men — Khaled Sharrouf, Khaled Cheikho and Moustafa Cheikho — as part of Operation Pendennis, the largest counter-terrorism investigation undertaken in Australia.

The men were convicted of conspiracy to commit an imminent terrorist act although no precise target had been chosen.

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Australian ISIS fighter Khaled Sharrouf in Iraq.

Sharrouf, who served less than four years in jail after boasting that he had tricked doctors into believing he was mentally ill so he would get a shorter sentence, went on to horrify the world when he uploaded a photograph of one of his four sons, aged seven, holding a severed head.

The convicted terrorist slipped out of Australia in 2013 using his brother’s passport and travelled to Syria to fight with Islamic State. His wife Tara Nattleton, who has since died, followed him with their children.

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Moustafa Cheikho, who had attended a militant Islamic training camp in Pakistan, is currently serving a 26-year jail sentence and Khaled Cheikho is serving 27 years.

After the arrests, letters were sent to some residents of Renown Ave warning the neighbours to move out of the area “if they want to live”.

Khaled Cheikho.

Moustafa Cheikho.

Then in 2015 more than two dozen heavily armed police raided another house and arrested a man while investigating the shooting murder of bodybuilder Hedi Ayoub, 22, at nearby Salmon Reserve.

The street is a mix of single-storey homes and red-brick unit blocks, with houses there selling for more than $1  million. And some residents said they were delighted to live there despite its notoriety.

Amanda Jacobs, 20, who has always lived on Renown St, said she loved it there.

“I’ve lived in the street for 20 years, I was born and raised here,” Ms Jacobs said.

Eman Shalaby, 20, Amanda Jacobs, 20, and Batoul Al-Masri. Amanda has lived on Renown Ave for 20 years. Picture: Jonathan Ng

“It’s a good peaceful street, and the people are kind, we’ve never had any troubles.

“I was surprised to hear there was an arrest at the weekend as the man who was taken away was very quiet, a good, man.”