Police in Sydney have arrested two men following a major counter-terrorism operation in the Australian city.
New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn said they believe the men, aged 24 and 25, were advanced in their preparations for an act of terrorism in Australia as revenge for “incidents overseas.”
“As a result of the police activities yesterday a number of items were seized and will be included as part of our evidence in court, and include a video recording, a flag, a machete and a hunting knife,” Burn said in a statement.
The men, who have not been named, were apprehended on Tuesday afternoon after a raid at a house in Fairfield, a suburb in western Sydney. They have now been charged with “acts done in preparation for, or planning terrorist acts,” the statement said.
Police officers from the Joint Counter Terrorism Team Sydney and members of the Tactical Operations Unit took part in Operation Castrum, which also included a search of the Fairfield address, a motor vehicle and their place of work, the statement added.
“Our message is we are watching, we are capable and we will act. That is what the community expects and that’s what we will deliver,” Burn said.
Sydney siege
In December last year, Australian authorities stormed the Sydney cafe where a self-styled Muslim cleric had been holding hostages, killing the gunman. They moved in some 16 hours after the siege began, after hearing gunfire inside the Lindt Chocolate Cafe in the center of the city. Two of the 17 hostages initially held by the gunman died.
Two other men will appear in court in Sydney later this month after they were charged with terror offenses late last month, with one accused of possessing documents designed to facilitate a terror attack on Australian soil.
The arrests were made as part of Operation Appleby, an ongoing investigation into Islamist extremists, which led to sweeping pre-dawn counter-terror raids in Sydney in September.
Footage of one of the two men, identified as Sulayman Khalid, 20, appeared in Australian media after his arrest, showing him dressed in a jacket bearing the ISIS flag, storming off the set of an Australian current affairs show in August in which guests had been discussing local support for Islamic extremism.