AUSTRALIA_ Terror plot: teenagers linked to top Islamic State recruiter Abu Khalid al-Kambodi

The Sydney Morning Herald

Terror plot: teenagers linked to top Islamic State recruiter Abu Khalid al-Kambodi

Date April 20, 2015 - 8:32AM
David Wroe National security correspondent

Melbourne terror suspects linked with Neil Prakash
The suspects arrested over an alleged ANZAC Day terror attack in Melbourne have been linked with the top Australian recruiter for IS, Neil Prakash also known as Abu Khalid al-Kambodi.

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The young Melbourne men arrested on Saturday over an alleged Anzac Day terror plot had close links to a senior Australian jihadist and Islamic State recruiter in Syria.

Fairfax Media understands that police are investigating the role in the plot played by Neil Prakash, 23, who is regarded by counter-terrorism authorities as the top Australian recruiter for the Islamic State terror group.

Photo: Authorities believe Neil Prakash, known as Abu Khalid al-Kambodi, has "filled the shoes" of a former top IS recruiter. Photo: Twitter

Prakash, who goes by the jihadist name Abu Khalid al-Kambodi, may have had direct contact with the Melbourne men recently, forming a direct link between the alleged plot and the terror group causing upheaval in the Middle East.

Advertisement He is known to have exhorted associates in Australia to carry out terrorist attacks and to target police and military personnel in particular.

Counter-terrorism authorities regard Prakash in the same way they saw his late associate Mohammad Ali Baryalei, a former Sydney bouncer who was believed killed fighting around the Northern Syrian city of Kobane in late 2014 but was previously regarded as the top Islamic State recruiter of Australians.

Photo: Sevdet Besim, 18, had been charged with conspiring to commit an act of terror. Photo: Channel 9

It is feared Prakash has now filled his shoes, with counter-terrorism officials referring to him as "Baryalei mark II".

Before he was killed, Baryalei made headlines in September 2014 after he allegedly urged his supporters to seize and execute a member of the public in Sydney, prompting the nation's largest counter-terrorism raids.

Like the men arrested on Saturday, Prakash has links to al-Furqan Islamic Centre in Springvale South.

Photo: The late Mohammad Ali Baryalei, a former Sydney bouncer who was previously regarded as the top IS recruiter of Australians. Photo: Twitter

The men, including Sevdet Besim, who has been charged with conspiring to commit an act of terror, were friends of Abdul Numan Haider, who was shot dead in September after attacking two policemen with a knife. Haider was also linked to al-Furqan.

The network was already of interest to counter-terrorism authorities before that incident but since then it has remained under intense scrutiny.

While police have refused to comment on whether the alleged plot to attack police officers on Anzac Day was revenge for Haider, they are understood to be examining whether the men wanted to emulate and go a step further than Haider.

Internally, Saturday's arrests are being seen as a textbook "disruption" operation that has effectively removed a threat.

With terrorism plots now tending towards low-tech and spontaneous attacks, police have to time their intervention carefully so they can gather enough evidence to mount a prosecution but do not wait so long that the plot becomes an imminent risk to the public.

Police are understood to have made use of recent changes to the law made by the Abbott government that mean they can now make arrests when they have a "reasonable suspicion" of a terrorist plot rather than needing the higher threshold of a "reasonable belief".

This allows them to launch disruption raids earlier than in the past.

Prakash is an avid social media user. He tweets regularly and has appeared in at least one slick Islamic State propaganda video. He also recently appeared in a promotion for another video in which he stars, though that video has not yet been released.

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