By Kevin Placek
Raids in Sydney have disrupted what authorities say was a plot to carry out terrorist attacks on Australian soil.
A series of police raids carried out across Sydney Thursday morning local time have thwarted what would have been a particularly violent and extreme terrorist attack in Australia. More than 800 officers from the Federal (AFP) and NSW Police Forces swept across the suburbs of Sydney to execute 25 search warrants after a Joint Counter Terrorism Team investigation identified a group of people “alleged to have the intent to carry out random attacks on individuals” in Australia.
According to the AFP, the police believe the group was actively preparing for an attack and said that the warrants were undertaken to stop their activities at the earliest opportunity. The Acting AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin said, “The police activity today was about preventing this group at the earliest possible opportunity and ensuring their plans did not come to fruition.” The raids, which also occurred in Queensland, are the largest counter-terrorism operations to have taken place in Australia.
Fifteen people have been detained on terrorism-related offences, with one of the accused, Omarjan Azari, charged with conspiracy to commit a terrorist act. According to The Australian, Azari appeared before the Sydney Central Local Court earlier today where the prosecutor alleged that he had planned the “random selection of persons to rather gruesomely execute” in order to “shock and horrify” the community. The court documents cited in the article charge Azari with conspiring with Mohammad Baryalei, who is reportedly the most senior Australian member of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group and has actively recruited a number of Australians to fight for IS in Iraq and Syria. Last week, the AFP issued an arrest warrant for Baryalei for terrorism-related activities, although his whereabouts is unknown since he arrived in Turkey in early 2013.
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