Terror raids: Fanatics plotted to ‘behead an innocent’
FANATICS are believed to have been planning multiple beheadings of innocent Australians. Police have established links between suspected terrorists in Brisbane and Sydney.
NSW
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BLOODTHIRSTY fanatics are believed to have been planning multiple beheadings of innocent Australians, with The Daily Telegraph discovering police have established links between suspected terrorists in Brisbane and Sydney.
A day after 800 police swooped on homes in Sydney and Brisbane in the biggest terror raids in Australia’s history, it can be revealed a series of attacks involving snatching innocent people off the street, draping them in an IS flag and beheading them on video before posting the atrocities on social media — all at the command of Islamic State leaders in Iraq — were allegedly being hatched. Australian Federal Police manager of counter-terrorism Neil Gaughan confirmed a link had been established between 21-year-old Agim Kruezi, who was arrested in Brisbane, and 22-year-old Sydney man Omarjan Azari, who was arrested yesterday on suspicion of planning a beheading.
It can be confirmed a machete and balaclava were discovered at Kruezi’s home in Brisbane, along with a firearm. It has also been confirmed he had been picked up by surveillance talking to Azari.
Yesterday the Supreme Court in Queensland refused bail to Omar Succarieh, who was arrested with Kruezi in a raid on an Islamic book shop in Brisbane last week. He is accused of making funds available to the Al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra.
He is also the brother of Australia’s first suicide bomber, Ahmed Succarieh, who killed himself in Syria last year.
As Australia came to grip with the news that 12 Sydney and three Brisbane suburbs had been the focus of dawn raids, AFP Assistant Commissioner Neil Gaughan told The Daily Telegraph what was allegedly being planned would have shocked the nation: “The issue is that terrorism is about instilling fear, that is the nature of terrorism. Certainly that is what they were contemplating doing.
“If something like this was to happen it would change the psyche of Australian society forever.”
Intelligence sources revealed the level of sophistication uncovered had alarmed them and had eclipsed the activities of the terrorists arrested in 2005 under Operation Pendennis.
“They were highly sophisticated in counter-intelligence,” a senior intelligence source said.
“They were burning phones, changing cars, they knew what they were doing to try and avoid detection.
While only two have been charged, police have not ruled out applying for control orders to curtail other suspects who may be planning acts of violence.
Azari appeared in Central Local Court and was charged with “conspiring with Mohammad Baryalei and others to do acts in preparation for or planning a terrorist act”.
Mohammad Ali Baryalei, a former Kings Cross bouncer and part-time actor, is believed to be the most effective recruiter of young Australians to the IS cause.
Commonwealth Prosecutor Michael Allnutt said the allegations involved a plan to “kidnap a person and gruesomely execute” and that it was a plan “clearly designed to shock, horrify and terrify the community”.
The court heard an “unusual level of fanaticism” was involved in the plan “which would leave a person less likely to take notice of a court order”, and therefore bail should be refused.
Azari’s lawyer, Steve Boland, made no application for bail. He said the allegations were based on just “one phone call”.
A second man, 24, from Merrylands was charged last night with possessing ammunition without a licence and unauthorised possession of a prohibited weapon and will face court on September 24.
“There are, I regret to say, networks of people here in this country who, despite living here, despite enjoying the Australian way of life, they would do us harm,”
- Tony Abbott 
Azari and the second man were among 15 people detained as more than 800 NSW Police and AFP officers executed 25 search warrants across Sydney in Operation Appleby.
In Wentworthville, Kawa Alou, 21, was arrested in a violent altercation with police. He claimed his nose was broken in the controntation. In Bass Hill, a 22-year-old man identified by Channel 9 as Ravi was questioned.
Armoured cars, backed up by NSW Ambulance Service paramedics, joined in raids in Beecroft, Bella Vista, Guildford, Merrylands, Northmead, Wentworthville, Marsfield, Westmead, Castle Hill, Revesby, Bass Hill and Regents Park.
Items seized included machetes, military fatigues, balaclavas and a scimitar bearing an inscription that means “severer of the vertebrae”.
A further 70 officers were involved in raids on properties in the Brisbane suburbs of Mount Gravatt East, Logan and Underwood.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said intelligence showed public beheadings had been urged by leaders of the Syria-based Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL.
“The exhortations, quite direct exhortations, were coming from an Australian who is apparently quite senior in ISIL to networks of support back in Australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country,” Mr Abbott said. “This is not just suspicion, this is intent.
Meanwhile, controversial Liberal Senator Cory Bernadi has this morning stood by a controversial tweet linking Australia’s biggest terror raids with the burqa.
Mr Bernadi was commenting on the largest terror raids in Australia’s history when he appeared to call for the head dress to be banned: “Note burqa wearers in some of the houses raided this morning? This shroud of oppression and flag of fundamentalism is not right in Aust.”
AFP forensic officers used metal detectors to dig up a bag in the front yard of a Guildford home targeted in the police terror raids.
Two red cars in the driveway were also searched and four pairs of cricket pads, a plastic bag and a stained carpet pulled from the boot of one of the vehicles.
At Merrylands more than 20 police officers and plain clothes detectives surrounded a unit block on Memorial avenue and arrested a bearded man about 11.35am.
The man was placed in the back of police van.
Local residents woke to the sound of a helicopter overhead and heavily armed police calling through a loud speaker: “Your house is surrounded with armed police.”
Neighbours have described their horror at the arrest of an alleged terrorist in Bursill Street Guildford before dawn.
One woman who wished not to be named said she was woken by the sound of a helicopter and her dog barking about 4.20am.
She said she heard police say five times over a loud speaker: “ You have to come to your front door, your house is surrounded with armed police.”
“It still took them a long time to come out,” she said.
Another woman, who wished not to be named said the people moved in only two weeks ago but she had not seen them.
Neighbour, Hassan Albatat, a Shia Muslim who emigrated from Iraq 12 years ago, was horrified by the allegations that his neighbours were involved in a terrorist plot.
“Some people are crazy,” he said.
“I come here to Australia to live to be safe, not in a dangerous way.”
Federal and NSW police continue to search the home.
One man was arrested at the Bursill Street address soon after police raided the home before dawn.
Another man with grazes to his forehead and left cheek walked free about 9.45am.
The man ran from the media’s cameras calling out: “come here and do it.”
Two women, including one whose face is hidden behind a head-to-toe niqab, remain in the house.
Detectives have brought cards and counted cash on the porch of the house.
Other items have been taken behind the closed roller doors of the garage.
LADDERS and shovels have been used during the raid of Beecroft home in connection to Australia’s biggest anti-terror raids.
Loud thudding was heard from inside the single storey brick house in the unassuming affluent north western Sydney street.
Several forensic and Australian Federal Police officers remained at the home hours after it was raided at dawn before leaving after 11am.
Builders at a home behind the house said police had asked them for a ladder and the police had been vigorously searching the property all morning.
“They’ve been back and forth, in the roof, under the house, everywhere,” one builder said.
Forensic officers also examined a Honda Civic parked in the driveway and took several photos of the home.
It is unclear if one of the 15 people arrested was taken from the brick veneer home. Neighbours said the Muslim family had rented the home for several years.
A woman dressed in a full length burka and a young man with a thick orange beard were seen sitting outside with AFP officers. The woman declined to comment about the raid when approached by the Daily Telegraph.
One neighbour said she saw sniffer dogs as she walked her daughter to school and Beecroft was one of the last places she expected a suspected terrorist to live.
“It brings it all home. There were a lot of police vehicles and 4WDs.
Not many Muslims live around here,” she said.
“But this doesn’t mean the people who live there have done anything wrong. The families of the London bombers did not know what they were up to.”
A LARGE police presence — including female forensics officers clad in hijabs — is in the midst of raids in Marsfield as authorities examine a number of addresses.
They are also focusing on a number of garages and vehicles an a short time ago took fingerprint swabs from a white Toyota Hilux ute.
Residents say they pounced on Waterloo Road early this morning andwere assisted from the air by police helicopters around 5:30am.
Officials are focusing on an apartment block along the street and it is understood a number of forensic tests have been performed.
Neighbour Albert, a taxi driver, said the block houses a number of men who wear “long white gentlemen’s hijabs” and sport beards.
“They are often walking along the street very early, like 5am,” Albert said.
Another neighbour said they often saw young children playing at the home and they were “very nice”.
“It’s a very quiet street. It’s out of keeping with the area,” they said.
A GROUP of teenage boys, one as young as 15, were among those targeted in pre-dawn raids at two properties in Wentworthville this morning.
Police seized laptops and phones from two properties on Bridge St and Lane St as part of a series of terror raids across Western Sydney.
Brothers Raban and Kawa Alou were asleep in their first-floor unit when they woke to the sound of heavily armed police at their door at about 4.30am.
Kawa Alou, 21, who recently served time in prison for an assault charge, claims his nose was broken in the confrontation.
Mr Alou and his 17-year-old brother Raban were told to stay on the ground as police searched the property.
“4.30 in the morning all I heard was the loud speaker, they started going off. My brother went on the floor stomach first,” Raban said.
“They said it (the raid) was for terrorist activity or some s***. Maybe I hung out with one or two people who were hotheads.
“They were looking for electronics, bombs, firearms, ammunition, phones, numbers, laptops. It says on the search warrant what they were looking for.
“There were 20 names on the list. Some I knew, some I didn’t. They raided my dad too.
“They targeted all Muslims. They go ‘let’s target this guy, just because he grows his beard long.’ Just because he prays five times and tries to avoid evil and attain good.”
Kawa claimed his nose was broken in the raid and denied any involvement in a terror plot.
“They told me to get on my knees so I got on my knees and cooperated and they dragged me and pulled me and then they stomped on my head and broke by nose. I just got back from the hospital,” he said.
The brothers are friends with two other boys whose family home on Bridge St was also raided.
Tom Dudu, 19, said he and his 15-year-old brother were the targets of the raid. Both had their phones seized and police spent more than 10 hours searching the property today.
“It’s stupid. I was shocked. Everyone was shocked. Everyone was there, except my dad,” Mr Dudu said.
He said his brother, a student at Parramatta High School, was a Muslim like the rest of his family but “isn’t very religious.”
“The guy over the road is only 15. F*** what do you want from him? He’s only in year 10,” Raban Alou said.
None of the men were arrested yesterday.
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