Janet Fife-Yeomans and Geoff Chambers
The Daily Telegraph
October 16 2015.
HE is a 12-year-old boy who loves playing rugby league, won a “best trainer” award and posts selfies on his social media accounts.
But he is in such danger of being radicalised he has been named in a court control order alongside 17 extremists described in court papers as a close-knit Western Sydney group, willing to commit murder or die for Islamic State, which has been trying to source guns.
The group includes three of the five men arrested last week in counter-terrorism raids after the shooting of unarmed police accountant Curtis Cheng, four men currently locked up in Goulburn Supermax and a 16-year-old classmate of Mr Cheng’s killer, Farhad Jabar, 15.
It is understood the 12-year-old, who cannot be named, also has links with notorious Supermax prisoner Milad Al-Ahmadzai, jailed for threatening to slit the throat of an intelligence officer, and convicted armed robber Bilal Elzamtar.
They are not alleged to have had any involvement in Mr Cheng’s death. Also named in the control order granted by the Federal Circuit Court is Raban Alou, 18, charged yesterday with terrorism offences over allegedly supplying the gun to Jabar as the teen terrorist walked to Parramatta police headquarters on his deadly mission Friday October 2.
“They are in frequent communication, often in relation to matters reflecting their shared Islamist ideology,” the control order states about the group.
“They continue to express support for the terrorist organisation, the Islamic State, or their desire to become a martyr, or to commit jihad.”
The control order was taken out in March by the Australian Federal Police against terror suspect Ahmad Saiyer Naizmand, 20, who tried to flee to Syria using his brother’s passport.
It gives an insight into the tight circle of alleged extremists, naming 18 people including two sets of brothers. Naizmand has been banned from associating with all 18.
“There is sufficient information Naizmand is communicating with the Naizmand group and others in code, possibly in relation to the sourcing of firearms,” the control order states.
Since some of the named men have been arrested and locked up on terrorist-related charges, Naizmand is said to have begun “constantly associating” with those who had previously only been on the periphery of what is labelled a “close knit group”.
Named among the 18 is Omarjan Azari, 25, currently in Supermax defending charges of helping plan a terrorist act in relation to an intercepted phone conversation he had with Mohammad Ali Baryalei.
Now believed dead, Baryalei was Australia’s most senior IS leader and recruited scores of Australians to fight in Syria and Iraq.
In the phone call, Baryalei told Azari a “very senior IS figure” had ordered that random kaffir (nonbelievers) should be killed and covered with the IS flag.
The court has heard Azari is alleged to have told Baryalei there were people he knew who had “the heart” to carry out such an attack and named Naizmand under his Arabic name, Abu Moussa, as one of those people.
That phone call sparked the massive Operation Appleby counter-terrorism raids involving more than 800 officers across Sydney’s west and northwest which police said foiled a plot to “commit violent acts”. Also named was Hamdi Alqudsi, who is the first person in Australia to be charged with recruiting and sending people overseas to fight in the Syrian battlefields.
Alqudsi was arrested in December, 2014, and is facing trial over allegations he organised travel and overseas contact for seven people, enabling them to contact and fight alongside terrorists.
The 41-year-old is on bail and was controversially allowed to live in Minto mosque during Ramadan.
Another man named in the order is Milad Al-Ahmadzai, who was jailed for threatening to “slit the throat” of an Australian intelligence officer.
He is serving a sentence of five years and six months for an ATM ram-raid.
Wassim Fayad, 46, who has previously been convicted and jailed for whipping a Muslim convert who confessed to drinking alcohol and taking drugs, was also named in the control order along with Sulayman Khalid, also known as Abu Bakr.
Khalid, 21, is being held in Supermax and will stand trial next year on charges he was in possession of documents “designed to facilitate a terrorist attack”.
Another is Ali Al-Talebi, 26, in Supermax on charges of arranging $6000 to be sent to IS forces in Syria. Khalid and Al-Talebi and both defending the charges/
Also on the list is Ahmad Rahmany, 25, who was released on a good behaviour bond with a $500 fine after pleading guilty to possessing a Taser and ammunition when he was arrested during the Operation Appleby raids. One of those arrested and released last week, Mustafa Dirani, 22, is also named in the group on the control order.
His home was also targeted in the Operation Appleby counter-terrorism raids.
The two not named in the control order who were arrested in last week’s raids are two brothers allegedly part of a crime clan. Both have since been released. Only Alou remains in custody.
Naizmand’s case returns to court on November 9.
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