Australia Launches Massive Anti-Terror Raid

WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images

Australia Launches Massive Anti-Terror Raid

Arrests reveal the war in the Middle East has reached Australian soil.

In what police are calling the largest anti-terror raid in Australian history, 800 heavily armed police and other security forces executed search warrants across Sydney and Brisbane suburbs.

The raids were triggered in response to a senior Islamic State member calling on Muslims to commit “demonstration killings” in Australia. At a press conference the morning after the operation, Prime Minister Tony Abbott confirmed the senior Islamic State member was in fact an Australian himself.

The Thursday morning raids primarily targeted Sydney’s western suburbs, which are home to some of Australia’s largest Muslim communities. Fifteen arrests were made and police officials haven’t ruled out more arrests in the coming days. According to police, at least two men have already been charged with “serious terrorism-related offenses.”

Those offenses are tied to plans uncovered by police forces during the raids. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corp., the uncovered plots were akin to the images seen in the execution of the American and British journalists by “Jihad John,” the Islamic State executioner.

The plans detailed how the Australian-born Muslims were going to kidnap a random person in Sydney, drape him in an Islamic State flag and then behead him. All of this, of course, would be filmed and released to the public.

The plans detailed how the Australian-born Muslims were going to kidnap a random person in Sydney, drape him in an Islamic State flag and then behead him.
“It is of serious concern that in the heart of our community there have been plans to conduct a random attack. We know there were plans on foot and we have been able to disrupt that,” Australian Federal Police Acting Commissioner Andrew Colvin said.

Sadly, “disrupt” is the key part of that sentence. It was only a year ago that British Drummer Lee Rigby was run over then brutally hacked to death in the middle of London by two British Muslims. It is only a matter of time before homegrown terrorists start carrying out similar acts of brutality in the land down under.

Speaking to the Seven Network, Prime Minister Abbott made the harrowing statement that “[a]ll you need is a determined individual who will kill without compunction—a knife, an iPhone and a victim.

But the raids also revealed that the terrorists’ ambitions went beyond individual killings.

During the raid, plans to carry out an attack on Parliament house were also uncovered. The plans involved an assault with automatic weapons, drawing on the tactics used in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack. Since the raids, Australian Federal Police have taken charge of guarding the parliamentary compound as the fear of retaliatory attacks still lingers.

Only days before the police raids, Australia’s terror level was raised to its highest level yet. Going from medium to high indicates that an attack “is likely to occur.” Australia was already worried about fighters returning from Syria with radical ideas and ambitions on Australian soil. Now there are fears of retaliation against Thursday morning’s police raid, as well as Australia’s recent troop commitment to combat the Islamic State in the Middle East.

Muslims have already taken to the streets in peaceful protests. Chanting and waving signs decrying what they perceive to be discriminatory acts by the police. The prime minister’s response was to say, “Police actions yesterday were about crime and potential crime. They weren’t about any particular religion or any particular community.”

During the raid, plans to carry out an attack on Parliament house were also uncovered.
But in truth, they were. Not in a biased or unjustified way—it was about crime perpetrated by people of a particular religion: Islam. And it was a particular community involved: the Muslim community.

The most troubling fact here is that despite the terror plots uncovered in the Thursday morning raids, Muslims still came out protesting against biased behavior while the prime minister still dodged stating who these terrorists are and what their affiliation is.

Australia is still bound hand and foot by political correctness. Failing to officially recognize who is trying to commit terrorist acts on Australian soil shows a failure to recognize the broader immigration pandemic that has seized the country.

Be it the possibility of a “lone wolf” attack or organized “pack attacks,” Australia’s security is seriously undermined by the increasingly radical minority groups within it that simply refuse to assimilate into Australian society.

The Trumpet has forecast this looming terrorist threat in the land down under for many years. Go back and reread the article titled “Australia’s Home-Grown Terrorists.” This article by late Trumpet columnist Ron Fraser explains how the seemingly smooth integration of minorities into this country has led to the terrorists living in its suburbs today—as forecast in your own Bible.