Radicalised Sydney teenagers ‘planned to target Jews’
A group of six radicalised Sydney teenagers is suspected of planning to obtain weapons to target the city’s Jewish community.
According to police information presented at court over the weekend and published on Monday, the teenagers, all of whom were male, were arrested several days ago.
Two of those arrested possessed graphic videos of Islamic State beheadings, with one also possessing bomb-making instructions, police said.
The police raids and arrests came days after the head of Australia’s domestic intelligence agency, Asio, warned that it was tracking nationalists and “racist extremists” who were discussing how to provoke a “race war” and sharing tips for making homemade weapons on encrypted messaging apps.
Mike Burgess, who is also Australia’s director-general of security, said that more young Australian men were using encrypted chat platforms to communicate with extremists. “They use an encrypted chat platform to communicate with offshore extremists, sharing vile propaganda, posting tips about homemade weapons and discussing how to provoke a race war,” he said.
It emerged on Monday that the 16-year-old who walked up to the pulpit in western Sydney’s Christ the Good Shepherd Church on April 15 and stabbed Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel as he delivered a sermon had been interacting with violent extremists online.
A bishop was stabbed at a Sydney church during a live stream on YouTube
On Monday an investigation conducted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) revealed the bishop’s teenage attacker had been following violent extremist accounts online for months. The boy, who has been charged with terrorist offences and cannot be named, remains in police custody along with other teenagers arrested in last week’s raids.
A recording of his attack on the outspoken Assyrian Orthodox bishop, who has in the past offended Muslims, was sent to his mother in the minutes after her son stabbed the bishop. The images sent her into shock. “When I saw him, I threw the phone,” she told the ABC. “I couldn’t move.”
In an interview aired by the broadcaster on Monday night, the boy’s parents sobbed as they expressed relief that Bishop Emmanuel survived and thanked police for protecting their son in the ensuing riot outside the church.
About 2,000 of the bishop’s followers descended on the church chanting “an eye for an eye” as police barricaded themselves inside with the arrested boy.
Police remained at the scene after the attack on the bishop in Wakeley, a suburb of Sydney
The attack triggered an urgent investigation, leading to mass police raids across Sydney last week and charges against six more boys, as young as 14, accused of being part of a terrorist network connected to the bishop’s attacker.
The teenagers spoke of their willingness to kill and die in the name of religious martyrdom, police alleged in court documents.
In one conversation on the app Signal five days after the bishop’s stabbing, one of the boys allegedly wrote: “I wanna die and I wanna kill … I’m just excited”, to which a 16-year-old responded: “We’re gonna kill … but we need patience”.
“I really want to target the yahood [Jewish people] … we will plan it,” one 15-year-old wrote in a Signal group chat.
The attack and the police information on Monday have heightened fears among the city’s Jewish community.
Bishop Emmanuel, an Assyrian Australian, is a prolific user of social media and has already posted messages as he recovers from the stabbing, one confirming he was on the mend and another in support of video of him being attacked remaining online.
His church, within a strongly Assyrian community in western Sydney, takes a conservative orthodox reading of Christianity. In a recent sermon, also live streamed to his global following, he said: “I can assure you in heaven Mohammad will not greet you, Buddha will not greet you, Krishna will not greet you … it will be Jesus Christ of Nazareth who died for you and me.”
After the attack, the Australian government’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant issued a global takedown notice for videos of the stabbing to X/Twitter and Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram.
Elon Musk, the owner of X, has refused to back down and accused Australia of attempting to impose censorship worldwide.