This story was still breaking at time of writing
Has Australia narrowly escaped a repeat of the horror at Bondi?
NSW police counter-terrorism squad, including heavily armed and armoured tactical police have made a dramatic arrest in Western Sydney. Early details indicate that a group of five or six men were apprehended in a dramatic arrest that apparently involved police ramming one of their cars. Some of men were arrested at the intersection and another apprehended in a nearby laneway.
The men had allegedly travelled to Western Sydney from Melbourne and were on their way to Bondi, site of Sunday’s horrifying anti-Semitic terror attack. Police apparently received information a “violent act” was possibly being planned.
Unconfirmed claims are that the men had guns in their cars – a white Hyundai i30 and a blue hatchback.
Videos of the arrests show men of Middle-Eastern appearance, in black clothing and zip-tied on the footpath.
Western Sydney is Australia’s Muslim heartland. Liverpool is just five kilometres from the suburb where the Bondi attackers lived.
NSW Police were tipped off the men were driving to Bondi Beach when they were intercepted by police in Liverpool, according to Sky News.
Video from the scene on Liverpool’s George Street on Thursday shows tactical police toting rifles and wearing green camouflage uniforms, helmets and vests, in the process of handcuffing several males’ hands behind their backs.
Two of the men are laid down on the road, directly behind a stopped vehicle, while the others appear to have been detained on the footpath.
Why the men were travelling to Bondi is not known.
I’m sure readers can make an educated guess.
This time, at least, the coppers weren’t mucking around.
Several rubber bullets appear to have been fired at the scene, with a photo showing a smashed section of windscreen. The video appears to show two stopped vehicles, which had a head-on collision, next to the men being detained.
A white hatchback involved in the collision and with Victorian number plates remained at the scene with police tape draped across it.
A second video shows what appears to be a second arrest of a man travelling in another car with Victorian number plates on it, with that incident coming at the nearby Laurantus Serviceway.
As opposition finance spokesman James Paterson said, of the incident:
“Police don’t take action like that lightly,” he told Sky News […]
He said the images of police in camouflage, holding long arms and standing over detainees with their hands zip-tied behind their backs, was “an image we’re more used to seeing come out of Gaza, not coming out of Sydney”.
While the arrests were apparently based on information a “violent act” was possibly being planned, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said yesterday morning that more raids would come in the wake of the Bondi terror attack.
“In the coming days, the New South Wales Joint Counter Terrorism Team will execute further search warrants to support our investigation. There is a lot of material to be examined, and the AFP continues to work with both domestic and international partners to build a more complete picture of the movements and who the alleged offenders had contact with, both in Australia and offshore,” she said.
No word yet on whether the PM has blamed ‘right-wing extremism’.
