Assailants Threaten Sydney Church, Australia Foils ’Daesh’ Beheading Plot
Local Editor
Australia's largest ever counter-terrorism raids on Thursday detained 15 people and foiled a plot by so-called "Daesh" [ISIL] extremists to conduct "demonstration killings," reportedly including beheading a member of the public on camera.
A major pre-dawn operation was carried out across Sydney and Brisbane by more than 800 officers acting on some 25 search warrants.
"Police believe that this group that we have executed this operation on today had the intention and had started to carry out planning to commit violent acts here in Australia," federal police chief Andrew Colvin said.
"Those violent acts particularly related to random acts against members of the public."
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he had been briefed on intelligence that public executions had been ordered by Daesh militants.
"The exhortations, quite direct exhortations, were coming from an Australian who is apparently quite senior in ISIL to networks of support back in Australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country," he said.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation [ABC] said court documents were expected to reveal that the plan involved snatching a random member of the public in Sydney, draping them in a Daesh flag and beheading them on camera.
Asked whether this was the case, Colvin replied: "That allegation will relate to serious violence on a random member of the public here on the streets of NSW [the state of New South Wales].
Meanwhile in Sydney, four assailants in a vehicle bearing the flag of Daesh drove past the Maronite Our Lady of Lebanon Church, shouting death threats to church-goers, media reports said on Thursday.
"Four youth in an unknown car and waving the flag of ISIL drove by the church threatening church-goers with murder and with slaughtering their children," the parish custodian, Monseigneur Shora Maree, revealed.
"This is now in the hands of police who are fully investigating. Please do not respond to or circulate any other version of the truth on social media as it creates unnecessary panic," Maree said in a statement.
The Australian government believes up to 60 Australians are fighting alongside extremists for Daesh, while another 100 were actively working to support the terrorist group at home.
The latest raids followed the arrests of two people last week in Brisbane who were charged with allegedly recruiting, funding and sending extremists militants to Syria.
Additionally, on Wednesday, a Sydney-based money transfer business was shut down amid concerns it was being used to funnel funds to the Middle East to finance terrorism.
The raids, which spanned multiple suburbs, came barely a week after Australia boosted the terror threat level from "medium" to "high" for the first time in a decade on growing concern about militants returning from fighting in Iraq and Syria.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
