A dozen homegrown extremists capable of attack as Farhad Jabar revealed as ‘second choice’ killer

AUTHORITIES believe there are a dozen men and boys in the wider Sydney community that are capable of carrying out a terror attack on Australian soil.

NSW Police employee Curtis Cheng, left, was shot dead teenager Farhad Jabar. Picture: Toby Zerna

AUTHORITIES believe a small group of extremists living in the wider Sydney community are capable of carrying out a terror attack on home soil.

They also fear homegrown extremists are increasingly targeting young people to act as martyrs because they know they are under surveillance.

Alleged terrorists behind the murder of NSW police accountant Curtis Cheng first tried to recruit a 14-year-old boy before settling on 15-year-old Farhad Jabar as the gunman.

The ABC Four Corners program cited police as revealing one member told another that because they were under such close surveillance, they needed a “jahil” — Arabic for an ignorant person — to “kill a kaffir”.

Police suspect they were referring to a child.

He shot Mr Cheng, 58, in cold blood outside the NSW Police Parramatta headquarters on October 2 before he was himself shot dead.

The ABC said Jabar, a year 10 student at the Arthur Phillip High School in Parramatta, had been recruited by members of a particular group identified by police in the longrunning Operation Appleby investigation.

NSW Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn said Jabar had not been a police target and was not somebody they would have assessed as a threat.

However, those allegedly behind the attack had come to police attention in previous terrorist investigations.

Terrorism consultant Shandon Harris-Hogan said those on the periphery of one terrorist investigation quite often comprised the core of the next investigation.

He said radicalisation wasn’t any form of top-down recruiting. “There isn’t usually an evil unknown predatory figure somewhere on the internet,” he said.

“It isn’t individuals being brainwashed. People aren’t radicalised by online propaganda.

“It’s fundamentally a social process.” Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Gaughan said most of these people knew each other.

“It’s a very small community that are engaged in illegal activity and even a smaller, much smaller group that wish to do Australians harm,” he said.

NSW Police employee Curtis Cheng, left, was shot dead teenager Farhad Jabar. Picture: Toby Zerna

AFP counter-terrorism chief Neil Gaughan told the ABC’s Four Corners program there are around 12 men and boys the police believe could pose a threat to national security.

These men and boys are part of a wider group of more than 30 who were identified following Operation Appleby — the largest counter-terrorism operation carried out in Australia.

“I think there can be no doubt that there’s a small group in Sydney that are engaged in activity which wants to upset the Australian way of life,” Assistant Commissioner Gaughan told the program.

“The first series of Appleby raids saw one person arrested with a large number of police involved.

“Since that time, 10 of those persons involved in the raids are currently in custody or before the court and we’ve laid in excess of 30 charges.

“Our first point of call in relation to these investigations is where there’s been a criminal offence committed we arrest, charge and prosecute.

“If we don’t meet that threshold, the next step we look at is a control order.”

Court documents obtained by Four Corners, also claim to show terrorism suspect Ahmad Saiyer Naizmand, 20, who was slapped with an interim order earlier this year, had been banned from associating with two men who were charged in connection with the Parramatta shooting of Curtis Cheng by 15-year-old Farhad Jabar.

The ABC reported that the control order states: “Members are a part of a close-knit group of men in Sydney who strongly support the ideology and activities of the proscribed terrorist organisation, Islamic State, and are willing to commit a terrorist attack.”

Four Corners also claims the AFP intercepted a phone call between Islamic State’s top recruiter, Mohammad Ali Baryalei and a man who is currently on terrorism charges, in which they discuss wanting to carry out a martyrdom operation but were restricted because of surveillance.

The program claims this man then suggested a “Jahil do the work”.

Jahil is an Arabic word for an “ignorant person”, the ABC reported.

Jabar was recruited due to intense police scrutiny on ringleaders.

The program said it understood members of the group first tried to recruit a 14-year-old boy, recently convicted of firearms offences, before settling on Jabar.

NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burn told Four Corners there were increasing concerns some members of the group were targeting younger men.

“What we can say is there is the very real issue at the moment where we are dealing with a small group of people who have become radicalised but who are turning that radicalisation into a form of violent extremism,” she said.

“And the unfortunate reality is that it might be impacting on people as young as 15 or maybe even younger.”

Global Terror Research Centre consultant Shandon Harris-Hogan said some members of the community have been allowed to go too far through the radicalisation process without intervention.

He said there have been 87 Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programs held in Australia over the past four years with little to no success.

“No research shows that they’ve had any tangible effect on violent extremism,” he told 4 Corners.

“Only one program actually engaged with individuals who were radicalising or had already radicalised.”