More than 400 police officers executed 13 search warrants at properties across Sydney overnight, with the suspects considered an immediate threat, police said on Wednesday. Intelligence officials warned that counterterrorism cases are increasingly focused on minors “vulnerable to radicalization”.
According to Al Jazeera, Officials said the seven detainees, aged 15 to 17, were linked to a network of which a 16-year-old member had allegedly been involved in a recent attack on a bishop, which took place during a live-streamed sermon at a church in western Sydney on April 15. The raids were spurred by concern that the network may have been plotting further attacks and posed an “unacceptable risk” to the public, they added.
Five other teenagers were also being questioned by a joint counterterrorism team, comprising federal and state police as well as the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the nation’s main domestic spy agency, and the New South Wales Crime Commission, which specializes in counterterrorism and organized crime.
“We will allege that these individuals adhered to a religiously motivated, violent extremist ideology,” New South Wales Police Deputy Commissioner David Hudson said.
“It was considered that the group … posed an unacceptable risk and threat to the people of New South Wales,” he said, adding that investigations had convinced the authorities that an attack was “likely”.
SD/PR
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