AFP issues 20 arrest warrants for terror suspects

AUSSIE jihadis who brought death and destruction to Iraq and Syria are being hunted by Australian Federal Police in Turkey. Authorities want to nab those trying to return home after the fall of IS.

FEDERAL police have obtained 20 arrest warrants to hunt down Australian jihadis who journeyed to Iraq and Syria to wreak death and destruction.

Australian Federal Police in Turkey are working closely with local authorities to snare fighters who they believe are planning to sneak over the border and return home after the fall of IS.

AFP Deputy Commissioner Ian McCartney said: “A real concern is a hardened Islamic State fighter returning from the conflict zone into Tullamarine Airport, given the threat they may pose. If they do return to Australia we want to be able to mitigate the risk with a priority of prosecuting (them).”

Among the 20 is Melbourne-born Neil Prakash, Australia’s number one terrorist suspect, in custody in Turkey. Since 2012, about 220 Australians have gone to Syria or Iraq.

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Neil Prakash in a propaganda video.

The AFP believes 40 have returned; 110, many of whom may be dead, are unaccounted for.

The AFP, Victoria Police and the nation’s spy agency ASIO believe that any terrorist assault is most likely to be of a low level of sophistication, and mounted by a lone-wolf attacker.

The Herald Sun can reveal that counterterrorist police are investigating 215 people in Australia.

Some of the 215 suspects are before the courts facing charges, including planning a terrorist act and providing support for foreign fighters.

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Authorities said the thwarting of a plot to smuggle an improvised explosive device on an Abu Dhabi-bound plane from Sydney last August had been a reality check.

“We will allege through the Sydney court case that IS had the capability and the capacity to direct co-ordinated attacks on Australia soil,” Mr McCartney told the Herald Sun.

“It wasn’t so much a surprise but a reality check in terms of methodology.”

AFP Deputy Commissioner Ian McCartney said: “A real concern is a hardened Islamic State fighter returning from the conflict zone into Tullamarine Airport, given the threat they may pose.” Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Since the national terrorism threat level was raised in September 2014, there have been 14 major counter-terrorism operations in response to planned attacks in Australia.

Of the 40 people to return from the Middle East, most have been assessed as not being a security concern.

Mr McCartney said the terrorist threat would “continue to morph”. He said: “However, the Australian community should be assured that Australia has strong law enforcement strategies in place to combat this threat.”

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Neil Prakash, 26, was arrested trying to sneak across the border from Syria on October 24, 2016.

Australian Isis recruiter Neil Prakash before and after his arrest by Turkish border guards. Credit: The Guardian

Police want to bring him back to Australia to face charges of being a member of a terrorist organisation and of carrying out “incursions into a foreign state with the intention of engaging in hostile activities’’ — essentially, of becoming a foreign fighter.

Reports this week linked Prakash with an American who was plotting to bomb New York’s Statue of Liberty.

Other suspects for whom the AFP have issued arrest warrants in recent years include Mohammad Ali Baryalei, believed dead, and doctor-turned-IS medic Tareq Kamleh. Queenslander Oliver Bridgeman also went to Syria but his family maintain he went to carry out humanitarian work.

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