The police arnt doing the raids to pick on Muslims.
no they're not. operation appleby is not anti-muslim -
so what triggered it?
THEY began as small-time local recruiters of wannabe jihadist fighters in western Sydney, picking up the business for a mate who had been thrown into jail.
Within seven months they were talking about detonating a car bomb in Australia, potentially killing dozens. And then, on Tuesday night, the gruesome order came through from the Middle East. It was from their friend, former Kings Cross bouncer and now senior Islamic State commander, Mohammed Baryalei: go out on the streets of Sydney and kill “a random kaffir (non-believer)”.
The story behind the alleged terror cell targeted by Operation Appleby, the largest counter-terror probe in Australia, is a tale of how disaffected Muslim youths can slide easily and inexorably under the toxic spell of the Islamic State terror group.
Their story could, if not for the actions of security agencies, have ended in a public beheading of an Australian. Yet it began almost by accident in a NSW jail cell in December last year when 39-year-old Sydney man Hamdi Alqudsi was charged with having organised for at least six people to travel to Syria to fight.
Alqudsi, whose wife had once been sentenced to six months in jail for falsely accusing a policeman of forcibly trying to remove her burka, was a popular figure among Sydney’s hardline Islamists.
Police could not help but notice those who turned up in court to support him; they refused requests by the NSW sheriff’s officer to remove their hats in court.
Police had hoped that Alqudsi’s arrest would slow the flow of Australians trying to get to Syria to fight, but they soon realised that his friends and supporters were planning to keep his business going while he was behind bars.
Police quickly identified a group of 17 young men who were, in Alqudsi’s absence, co-ordinating efforts to recruit wannabe Australian jihadists to take up the fight with the Islamic State.
The men were mostly from western Sydney, poorly educated, in relatively menial jobs and were highly energised by the conflict in Syria and the supposedly holy war against the dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Their point-man in Syria was Mohammad Ali Baryalei, an Afghan refugee who had come to Australia as a child and who had worked in a Kings Cross nightclub and also as a part-time actor, once scoring a minor role on the gangland drama Underbelly.
A devout Muslim who once roamed the streets of Sydney trying to convert people, the 33-year-old Baryalei left for Syria in April last year to fight with militants.
Once there, he quickly established himself as the most important recruiter of Australians in Syria, and, after initially joining the al-Qa’ida affiliate terror group Jabhat al-Nusra, Baryalei joined the fast-rising Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (now Islamic State).
It was Baryalei who lured to Syria the notorious Khaled Sharrouf, whose nine-year-old son was recently photographed holding the severed head of a Syrian soldier, and also his friend Mohamed Elomar, who has taken part in executions.
Police estimate Baryalei has been responsible for the recruitment of more than 30 of the 60 Australians believed to have travelled there to fight. Early this year, authorities began to monitor communications between Baryalei and some of the 17 young men he wanted to act as his jihadist recruiters in Sydney.
The plan was that they would send their recruits from Australia to Turkey, where they would meet Baryalei and he would take them into the warzone. Unlike some extremists, this group did not use social media to communicate with Baryalei and were said to be more sophisticated than most in trying to hide their intentions.
Even so, authorities noticed that this emerging group had a rough hierarchical structure, with four of the 17 men, including 22-year-old Omarjan Azari who was charged with terror offences yesterday, assuming a leading role in their dealings with Baryalei.
The group was also in close touch with Alqudsi, taking instructions from him and visiting him while he was in jail.
In early May, after the group’s contact with Baryalei increased, the Australian Federal Police decided to have a formal investigation into the group, dubbing it Operation Appleby.
But the group’s recruitment efforts were frustrated by ASIO, which on several occasions cancelled the passports of the person Azari’s group was trying to recruit, preventing them from leaving Australia.
Then, early last month, came the game-changer. As Islamic State was conducting its murderous rampage through northwest Iraq, the group received a phone call from Baryalei in which he asked the group to carry out an attack in Australia.
Authorities listened in as some of the group discussed packing a vehicle with explosives and detonating it.
The group did not say what the target of the attack would be and it was clear that they were only in the early stages of discussion.
Authorities debated what to do, but decided that because they had the group well covered and would know if they were getting close to creating such a bomb, that they would “let it run” to try to gather more evidence.
The more they watched the group, the more suspicious links they found. One of those to visit the group in Sydney was Omar Succarieh, 31, brother of Australia’s first suicide bomber in Syria, Ahmed Succarieh.
Succarieh, from Logan, south of Brisbane, was arrested on raids across southeast Queensland last week and is accused of providing funds to al-Nusra and preparing for hostile incursions into Syria.
The federal government is adamant that ASIO did not lift the terror threat level last Friday because of this alleged Sydney terror cell alone, but the group was considered the most significant of the current threats being monitored by ASIO and the AFP.
Then on Tuesday this week authorities monitored a call between Baryalei and Azari in which Baryalei allegedly demanded that Azari go out and kill a random non-Muslim as a demonstration of Islamic State’s intent.
During the call there was no reason given for this sudden change of plan, but Baryalei had many reasons to be angry. It could have been prompted by ASIO’s decision to lift the terror threat level. Or by the commitment last week of a sizeable Australian military contingent, including 600 troops, to help fight Islamic State in Iraq. Or by the arrest last week of Baryalei’s friend Succarieh. Or by the AFP’s announcement last week that it had issued an arrest warrant for Baryalei.
In the intercepted conversation the actual word “behead” was not used but it was allegedly implied by a suggestion that a flag be draped around the victim’s head and that their death be videoed and placed on social media, similar to the recent beheading executions by Islamic State of two US journalists and a British aid worker.
A vague long-term plan to detonate a car bomb was one thing, but a here-and-now order to execute an Australian in cold blood was a crime that could take place at any time.
Counter-terror chiefs held urgent meetings to decide what to do. They discussed the murder by Islamic extremists of British soldier Lee Rigby on a London street in May last year. It was clear they could not guarantee there would be no repeat of such an attack on the streets of Sydney. There really was no choice; they had to go in immediately.
In barely 24 hours, about 870 police officers were mobilised and raids were planned on more than 27 homes in two states with the aim of detaining and questioning 17 men. Tony Abbott was briefed on Wednesday evening.
In the pre-dawn light yesterday they swooped. With helicopters hovering overhead, dozens of police raided homes across Sydney and Brisbane. Operation Appleby had broken open the single largest cell of Islamic State sympathisers in Australia and had almost certainly thwarted a terrorist attack.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/terror/the-order-to-kill-that-triggered-operation-appleby/s...
