Australian police arrested seven people in an anti-terror raid in Sydney on Wednesday. About 400 police officers were involved in the large-scale operation in the southwest of the city, who conducted house searches of suspects posing an immediate threat, the police said according to the AP agency.
The action was linked to an attack last week, in which a 16-year-old boy attacked the bishop of the Assyrian Church during a church service, causing him multiple stab wounds. The attacker was accused of terrorism.
The AP agency reported that the seven detainees are between 15 and 17 years old. “We had to take legal action to prevent any further planning or attack on our communities,” Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw said, according to the AP. In a statement, the Australian Intelligence Service assured that the safety of residents was not at risk.
The Federal Court of Australia on Wednesday extended until May 10 an order banning the X social network from publishing a video recording of the attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel. The religious services of this cleric with tens of thousands of followers are broadcast live on the Internet, so footage of the attack quickly spread on social networks.
The target of the attacker was Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, who was born in Iraq in a Christian family. He is often referred to as a controversial personality due to his sharp criticism of homosexuality, vaccination against covid or parts of Muslim theology. According to the video taken at the scene of the crime, the attacker shouted at the bishop in Arabic that he was insulting Islam, Reuters wrote.
