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| Down Under | |
| Five arrested in western Sydney over terrorist attack outside police HQ | |
| 2015-10-07 | |
Police arrested four males aged between 16 and 22 in counter-terror raids across western Sydney. A fifth person, a 24-year-old man from Merrylands, was also arrested but was not detained as part of the joint counter-terror raids operation. He was arrested as a result of an outstanding warrant for identity fraud and other fraud matters. Police allege the four men arrested in the counter-terrorism operation are directly linked to the fatal shooting of police accountant Curtis Cheng outside the Parramatta police HQ last Friday. Eighteen-year-old Raban Alou was arrested at Lane Street, Wentworthville, the same home where his older brother Kawa was arrested in sweeping raids in September last year and released without charge. Police also arrested a 16-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons and who was in the same year at Arthur Phillip High School as Farhad Jabar, the 15-year-old who shot Mr Cheng. At Marsfield, police arrested another target of the September 2014 raids, 22-year-old Mustafa Dirani, a former student of Arthur Phillip High. The 16-year-old boy and two 22-year-old men who were arrested have since been released, while the 18-year-old remained in custody overnight. Police also returned to the Guildford home of Omarjan Azari, who is in jail on a charge of conspiracy to murder after being arrested in last year's raids. The 2014 raids were sparked by a phone call to Azari in which Australia's most senior Islamic State lieutenant, Mohammad Ali Baryalei, allegedly directed him to kill a random member of the public. Members of the group who were raided in 2014 and Baryalei, who has since been killed in Syria, were known to congregate at the Parramatta mosque where Farhad spent several hours before he carried out last Friday's attack. The 15-year-old was shot and killed by police at the scene of the shooting. 15YO GUNMAN 'DID NOT ACT ALONE' Police are investigating where the gun came from and whether one of the four men arrested on Wednesday morning supplied it to the gunman. NSW Police Force Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burn it was unclear whether or not the four arrested inspired the terrorist attack on Parramatta Police HQ. "We have certain suspicions and we are clearly going to have to sift through all of this over the next couple of days," she said. She said the motivation of the 15-year-old was still unknown but police definitely had the suspicion he did not act alone. "What we are investigating is a terrorism offence so what we would suggest and we suspect is that there was some influence — whether it was ideologically, religious or politically motivated — that determined and influenced the 15-year-old to go and commit this horrendous act of violence," she said. But Ms Burn said the teen gunman had "not been a target of ours and is not somebody we would have assessed as a threat". Acting Deputy Commissioner Neil Gaughan told reporters no terrorist organisation had claimed responsibility for the attack. Meanwhile, New South Wales Premier Mike Baird said "there's no doubt" Sydney had a problem with Islamic radicalisation. "Importantly though, this is a minority. It is something that will be dealt with," he said. "It will be dealt with on the basis of the Muslim community [and] it'll be done more broadly with the whole community." Three arrested plus gunman went to same school Mr Baird said he was concerned about religious radicalisation in the state's schools, but insisted the problem was not widespread. Two of the males arrested on Wednesday, along with a teenager charged with threatening police on Tuesday, and the teenage gunman from the Parramatta attack all went to Arthur Phillip High School. Mr Baird said he had asked the Education Department to accelerate the work it was doing to combat radicalisation among school students, but he downplayed the extent of the problem. | |
| Posted by:Northern |
| #1 But I thought that other, more "advanced" nations didn't have shootings and Australia gave up its guns. Obumble wouldn't lie to us, would he? |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2015-10-07 10:35 |