Three arrested over alleged Sydney terror plot
Police believe three men arrested in raids across Sydney today were IS supporters.
Police believe three western Sydney men arrested this morning were supporters of the Islamic State who allegedly planned to carry out terrorist attacks on several targets including police stations, consulates, courts, and churches in the Sydney CBD.
Speaking at a NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team press conference in Sydney this afternoon, AFP Assistant Commissioner Ian McCartney said the men, aged 20, 23 and 30, would be charged with a range of “serious offences”, from being a member of a terrorist organisation, Islamic State, acts in preparation of a terrorist attack in Australia, and preparations to enter a foreign country with the intent of hostile activities.
The 20-year-old has been named as Isaak el Matari who was arrested at his Greenacre home.
Police believe the plans for local terror attacks were in “early stage preparations”.
“We will say that they had a number of targets, including police stations, defence establishments, embassies and councils, courts and churches,” Mr McCartney said.
“We were satisfied up until this morning when the arrest was made that this man had not moved to finalise his plans in relation to this terrorist attack.”
Police will also allege that El Matari made preparations and was willing to travel to Afghanistan to fight for Islamic State, and that he had been monitored for the last year since he returned to Australia from Lebanon.
“There are still those within the community who wish us harm and the community of Australia harm.
“Their actions are criminal and they represent hatred and terror.
“We have sufficient evidence to charge and that’s why we’ve taken this action today.” Mr McCartney said.
NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Mick Willing said: “At no point during this investigation did we feel that the safety of the public was compromised.
“We had an escalation plan that was in place and ready to be implemented should that situation arise. However, there are now three persons before the court.”
Mr Willing said the men knew each other via social media, and confirmed their plans involved importing weapons and explosives.
The arrests came after six counter terrorism raids were conducted in Canada Bay, Chester Hill, Greenacre, Green Valley, Ingleburn and Toongabbie in Sydney this morning.
Dutton calls out Labor
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton used today’s terrorism arrests to ramp up pressure on Labor to support its Temporary Exclusion Order bill, which will be introduced into federal parliament on Thursday.
Mr Dutton said introducing the legislation was “incredibly important’’ because one of those charged today had returned from overseas as an Australian citizen and was alleged to have been involved in activities over the past 12 months that led to the terrorism arrest.
Under the legislation the government would have the ability to exclude Australian citizens for two years from the country if they were alleged to have been involved with banned organisations such as Islamic State.
Mr Dutton said the two-year exclusion would give authorities more time to manage an individual who may have been involved with Islamic State or trained in terrorism.
He said the raids showed that terrorism remained “a very serious threat’’ and this marked the 16th time an alleged attack had been thwarted by the authorities.
Mr Dutton said the threat was terrorism had not diminished.
“It’s not going away and it remains current, particularly when we’ve got Australians overseas in a theatre of war being trained by Islamic State or inspired online and we want to deal with those people as best we can,’’ he said.
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