Caravan of explosives set for Jewish synagogue attack found in Sydney – as NSW Police launch major investigation

From the Daily Telegraph and 9 News photograph from Daily Mail Australia

A potential anti-Semitic terror attack has been foiled after a caravan laden with explosives and a note with the addresses of key Jewish targets was found in Sydney’s north.

The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday afternoon broke the news of the shocking discovery on Derriwong Rd at Dural, in Sydney’s northwest, which has now seen more than 100 police deployed as part of a joint counter terror investigation.

A local alerted police to the contents of the caravan which included mining explosives, a note with the addresses of a Sydney synagogue and other Jewish buildings, as well as a note that read “f**k the Jews” on January 19.

NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Dave Hudson said the incident is being treated as a credible terror plot which he said was an “escalation” on other anti-Semitic attacks in recent weeks. “The discovery and the detection of the caravan with an amount of explosives was not going to be used in the normal anti-Semitic attack that we have seen occur in Sydney, such as graffiti and arson attacks,”

A joint counter terrorism investigation involving more than 100 officers from not only NSW Police, but the Australian Federal Police, ASIO, NSW Crime Commission and other state police forces, was this week initiated.

Police sources said locals in Dural had first noticed the caravan sitting parked next to a small cemetery on Derriwong Rd about December 7, before a resident concerned about its location nearing a bend in the road towed it away onto their property.

It was only when they did so that they looked inside and found the explosives and notes, before calling the police.

It is understood the explosives included Powergel, a small stick which can create a blast wave of up to 40 metres, which police believe was stolen from a mining site.

While police are treating the threat at its highest, detectives are also understood to be considering the fact that the caravan was planted to fuel anti-Semitism.

Police were photographed carrying out a search warrant at a home on January 21 on the same road where the caravan was found, but it is understood not to have any links to the caravan.

“Some things just don’t add up,” a source involved in the operation said.

“Leaving notes and addresses are too obvious, likewise leaving it on a public road makes us believe it could well possibly be a set up.”

The caravan discovery comes after a recent spate of attacks on Jewish landmarks and other buildings, where anti-Semitic graffiti was left behind.

Dep Comm Hudson said detectives working on other anti-Semitic attacks have already made arrests on the “periphery” of the caravan investigation. It is understood one of those arrests was that of Tammie Farrugia, who was last week charged over an alleged anti-Semitic attack at Woollahra in December. Farrugia’s boyfriend Scott Marshall, who was charged late last year with weapons and drug offences to which he has pleaded not guilty, is another of the “periphery” arrests.

Farrugia and Marshall sound like nasty pieces of work implicated in a lot of vandalism, some of it anti-semitic. I can’t see from a quick search whether they are part of either a genuine neo-fascist group or are heavily invested in the pr0-Palestine movement. But the Australian Federal Police (AFP) are separately investigating whether, as reported in the Guardian Australian politics section 

The AFP commissioner, Reece Kershaw, has revealed his officers are investigating if “overseas actors” are paying local criminals to commit acts of antisemitism, which he described as a “disease” that “needs to be aggressively attacked”. Kershaw, who said there was no doubt antisemitism was escalating and that it was having an impact on social cohesion “and crime in general”, also revealed that there were 15 serious incidents under investigation.

Police are looking into the possibility that the caravan was dumped with the intention of being found “That’s one of the lines of inquiry that we’re pursuing, whether it is a strategic matter that they’ve left those there to be discovered by police or authorities,” Hudson said.  “Whether someone was looking for some assistance at court, whether someone was going to disclose the existence of those explosives to us prior to it being recovered.”

NSW Police said it had been treating the find as a credible terrorist threat. .. Premier Chris Minns called the discovery an act of terrorism.

“It’s very important to note that police will make a decision about enacting terrorism powers if they require that … however this is the discovery of a potential mass casualty event, there’s only one way of calling it out and that is terrorism. There’s bad actors in our community, badly motivated, bad ideologies, bad morals, bad ethics, bad people.

“They’re intent on doing damage and harm to others in our community, people they’ve never met before, purely on the basis of their religion. It’s hateful. It’s an ideology that we need to stamp out.”

He said that the threat was being taken “incredibly seriously”.

The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies said it was extremely concerned at the documents found with the caravan.

“It goes without saying that this is a matter of the gravest possible consequence,” the board’s President David Ossip said. “We have been saying for weeks now that the Jewish community is the target of an ongoing campaign of domestic terrorism. This is now beyond dispute.