Australia foils Islamic State 'beheading' plot; 15 people detained in police raids

A heinous plot by Islamic State jihadists to carry out beheadings in Australia was foiled today after 15 people were arrested in the country's largest ever counter-terrorism raids. The emerging reality of terrorism in Australia struck just before dawn today when more than 800 police launched synchronised raids on houses and vehicles across Sydney's west and northwest and Brisbane's south. At least one gun was seized, along with a sword in the raids. Nine of those detained were later released.

The raids foiled a plot involving a man believed to be Australia's most senior Islamic State (IS) member who called contacts in Australia and asked them to carry out a campaign of random public beheadings in Sydney and Brisbane Mohammad Ali Baryalei, a former Kings Cross bouncer and a part-time actor, is understood to have made the instruction to kidnap people in Brisbane and Sydney and have them executed on camera. That video was then to be sent back to IS's media unit, where it would be publicly released, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

Omarjan Azari, 22, from the western Sydney suburb of Guildford, was one of 15 people detained during the operation in Sydney and is accused of conspiring with Baryalei and others to act in preparation or plan a terrorist act or acts, court documents show.

Commonwealth prosecutor Michael Allnutt told Sydney's Central Local Court the alleged offence was "clearly designed to shock, horrify and terrify the community". Allnutt said there was "a plan to commit extremely serious offences" that involved an "unusual level of fanaticism". He said the plot involved the "random selection of persons to rather gruesomely execute" and said there was an "irrational determination to commit that plan" because those allegedly involved continued to plot the attacks even though they knew they were under police surveillance.

The court was told the charges against Azari stemmed from a single phone call intercepted earlier this week and police made their move this morning to disrupt a group of mostly Afghan Australians 48 hours after that phone call.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he had been briefed on intelligence that public beheadings had been ordered by IS militants. "That's the intelligence we received," he said, prompting comparisons to the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby, who was hacked to death in a random attack on a street in England last year by two Muslim converts. "The exhortations, quite direct exhortations, were coming from an Australian who is apparently quite senior in ISIL to networks of support back in Australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country," the Prime Minister said.