Two men were charged in Australia yesterday after police thwarted an “imminent” terror attack, seizing an Islamic State (IS) flag, a machete and an Arabic-language video detailing the alleged plot during a raid in Sydney.
New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn said the planned attack was “consistent with the messaging coming out of IS,” while New South Wales Premier Mike Baird described it as “beyond disturbing.”
Asked whether the plot involved a beheading, Burn said police were as yet unsure, but that it had been due to happen on Tuesday in Sydney, and would likely have involved a knife.
The men, Omar al-Kutobi, 24, and Mohammad Kiad, 25, were arrested in a raid on a property in the city’s western suburbs by the Joint Terrorism Taskforce on Tuesday after a tip-off and charged with making preparations for a terrorist act.
Reportedly devout Muslims, they were refused bail with the case adjourned until today due to security issues.
In September last year, Australian police shot dead a “known terror suspect” armed with two knives who stabbed two officers in Melbourne, a day after the IS group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), called for Muslims to indiscriminately kill Australians.
In another unprovoked attack in May 2013, two Britons of Nigerian descent hacked to death 25-year-old soldier Lee Rigby near an army barracks in the southeast of London.
Australian Attorney-General George Brandis told parliament the video seized allegedly showed “one suspect kneeling in front of an ISIL flag, with the knife and machete, making a politically motivated statement, threatening to undertake violent acts with those weapons.”
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the video was in Arabic and that “regrettably there are people out there, some living in our midsts, who would do us harm.”
Baird said a potentially “catastrophic” incident had been avoided.
“It was beyond disturbing, what was planned,” he told reporters. “Certainly, something catastrophic was avoided yesterday and for that we should be very thankful.”
Australia in September last year raised its terror threat level and carried out extensive raids in Sydney and Brisbane to disrupt an alleged plot by IS supporters to abduct and randomly behead a member of the public.
In December last year, Sydney was rocked by a siege at a cafe by Iranian-born Man Haron Monis, a self-styled cleric with a history of extremist views.
He took 17 people hostage for about 16 hours, with the stand-off only ending after Monis shot dead cafe manager Tori Johnson, prompting police to storm the building and kill him. Another hostage was killed by a stray police bullet.
Abbott yesterday warned people to prepare for more IS-influenced plots.
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