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Discovery of explosives-filled trailer near Sydney averted mass casualty event — police
[IsraelTimes] Police say public revelations about vehicle, believed to have been intended to blow up synagogue, compromised ongoing probe into series of antisemitic attacks in AustraliaThe discovery on Wednesday of a trailer full of explosives likely intended to blow up a synagogue in Sydney, Australia, may have prevented a "mass casualty event," New South Wales police officials said Thursday, while adding that reports on the matter had potentially compromised a police investigation into a string of antisemitic attacks. Several people "around the periphery" of the planned attack have been arrested since the caravan packed full of explosives was discovered, police said, adding that the owner was already under custody for a separate antisemitic attack. However, alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... no arrests directly linked to the incident have been made. According to police, there is increasing evidence that the continued wave of attacks on Australia’s Jewish community is being "orchestrated" from above. On Wednesday, after reports began appearing in the Australian press, NSW police confirmed that they had found a trailer containing explosives in the Sydney suburb of Dural on January 19. There was "some indication" that the explosives discovered were intended to blow up a synagogue, they said. On Thursday, Sherlocks clarified that the trailer contained Powergel explosives stolen from a mining site, powerful enough to create a 40-meter blast wave that could trigger a "mass casualty event." Sky News Australia host Sharri Markson reported Thursday that the explosives were intended for Sydney’s Great Synagogue and the Sydney Jewish Museum in Darlinghurst. Police have not confirmed this. Jewish community leaders charged that police were not doing enough to solve the case, and insisted that they shouldn’t have been kept in the dark about the incident. "Until we know who the puppet masters are, and what their motives are, it’s impossible to point the finger with any degree of certainty about who’s responsible," said Peter Wertheim, co-chief executive officer of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ). NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb responded by saying the incident was being investigated quietly, and that further public revelations of details to the media would make it more difficult to solve the case. "The fact that this information is now in the public domain has compromised our investigation, and it’s been detrimental to some of the strategies we may have used," Webb said. Webb stressed that the threat had been "mitigated very early on," so there was no pressing need for the incident to be shared publicly. NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Dave Hudson added that police had found indications of bad actors coordinating the attacks above the level of those perpetrating the attacks. Regarding the individuals detained in connection with the caravan, he said police had not identified any "specific ideology that would cause them to commit the acts that they’ve committed, and that indicates to us that they are being orchestrated in some manner." Three separate incidents of anti-Jewish graffiti were also reported in Australia Wednesday night, including antisemitic slurs painted on the wall of Jewish school Mount Sinai College at Maroubra. Australia has seen a surge in antisemitic actions since the Hamas  ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which sparked the war in the Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppressionand disproportionate response... Strip. The number of anti-Jewish incidents in Australia quadrupled in the year after the terror assault in southern Israel, according to data from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. These have included several arson attacks on synagogues and community centers in Sydney and Melbourne and the repeated spraying of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel graffiti on properties or vehicles in areas with large Jewish populations. Last month also saw a neo-Nazi ...adherents of a philosophy that was seen even at the time as pure evil, which makes them either consciously purely evil, or attention-seeking ratbags. Pick one, or both.... rally by the Melbourne parliament. In December 2024, New South Wales launched Strike Force Pearl, whose team includes counter-terrorism and special tactics officers, to investigate antisemitic hate crimes in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, following an arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue. Australia’s federal police also launched Operation Avalite to investigate the surge in antisemitic crimes that has followed the Hamas attack in Israel. Last week, Australian police revealed for the first time that they believe the ongoing scourge of antisemitic attacks in the country may be coordinated by foreign actors.
Slogans were daubed at a Jewish school, as well as at a nearby home and shopping center. It was not clear from reports if the home was Jewish owned. Among the messages vandals wrote were “You fucking Jews,” “Jews are real terrorists,” “Jew dogs,” “Fuck the Jews,” and “You wanna buy a caravan,” the last an apparent reference to the Wednesday announcement of the discovery of an explosives cache in a trailer earlier this month. Law enforcement found a list of Jewish targets together with a cache of Powergel — an explosive used in the mining industry — in Sydney’s outer suburb of Dural, state police said Wednesday. The amount uncovered could create a bomb with a blast zone of around 40 meters (130 feet), officers said. News of the discovery — which police chiefs said was leaked to a newspaper, compromising a clandestine investigation — followed months of antisemitic arson, window-smashing, and graffiti in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s most populous cities, concentrated in the areas where many Jewish people live. “It is utterly appalling and shameful,” Minns said. A police investigation into months of such crimes has prompted 10 arrests and Minns said he expected more. RENEWED CLAIMS ABOUT COORDINATION BY FOREIGN INTERESTS Since the Israel-Hamas war began in 2023 with the Palestinian terror group’s devastating invasion of Israel, targeted arson — including at a child care center — and graffiti attacks have soared in Sydney and Melbourne, home to 85 percent of the country’s Jewish population. One person has been physically hurt — a worshiper who suffered burns in an arson attack that destroyed a Melbourne synagogue in December. A joint counterterrorism team involving federal and state law enforcement is investigating the attacks, and this month its leaders said they were investigating whether criminals for hire were being paid by foreign actors to carry out the attacks. Australia Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw did not name what foreign interests the taskforce believed were responsible.
Related: Sydney: 2025-01-30 Good Morning Sydney: 2025-01-30 Sydney police uncover cache of explosives, with indication target was synagogue Sydney: 2025-01-27 2 arrested in attack on Australia’s Newtown Synagogue Posted by: trailing wife 2025-01-31 |
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