The Joint Counter-Terrorism Team, which combines state and Commonwealth agencies including the Australian Federal Police and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, has taken over the investigation and tasked more than 100 officers to catch the perpetrators.
But no arrests have yet been made, NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Dave Hudson said on Wednesday evening.
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“I can indicate we have no information that there are further explosives in our community in relation to conducting antisemitic attacks anywhere,” Hudson said. “We believe that we have contained, appropriately, this current threat.”
While Minns said he was briefed on January 20, one day after the discovery of the explosives, the office of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did not say when he was told.
In a statement on Wednesday night, Albanese “unequivocally” condemned the act and said hate and extremism had “no place in Australian society”.
“The NSW Police have people in custody and continue with other agencies, including those involved in AFP Special Operation Avalite to investigate threats, violence and hatred towards the Australian Jewish community, and take action and hold people to account for crimes,” Albanese said.
Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson called for answers from the federal government about why the discovery was kept secret and when authorities briefed the prime minister and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke.
“The apparent discovery of a roadside bomb in NSW targeting the Jewish community is an incredibly disturbing development in an escalating domestic terrorism crisis,” Paterson said on social media.
“The prime minister and minister for home affairs must explain when they were first briefed on this matter, what action they took to protect the community and why they thought it was appropriate to keep it a secret for this long.”
NSW Premier Chris Minns and NSW Police Force Deputy Commissioner David Hudson speak at a press conference about the Dural discovery.Credit: Nine News
Police have made arrests “around the periphery” of the caravan attack, and those people remain in custody, but no one has yet been caught for the caravan of explosives.
Those arrested were picked up by Strike Force Pearl, which was established to combat the waves of antisemitic attacks across Sydney.
But the caravan plot was so serious, Hudson said, it was escalated out of the strike force and handed to the JCTT.
“The discovery and the detection of the caravan with an amount of explosives was not going to be used in the normal antisemitic attack that we have seen occur in Sydney, such as graffiti and arson attacks. This is certainly an escalation of that with the use of explosives that have the potential to cause a great deal of damage,” Hudson said.
Hudson said the threat to the community had not been eliminated, but “mitigated”.
“The full resources of the state of NSW and NSW Police have been deployed to confront this very serious threat to our community,” Minns said.
Hudson said they were conducting a clandestine investigation and planned to tell the public “very soon”. Instead, the investigation leaked in the press.
Minns pushed back when asked why the Jewish community and wider public were not made aware of the threat 10 days ago.
“There’s a very good reason that police don’t detail methods and tactics and that’s so that criminals don’t understand what police are getting up to in their investigations,” he said.
“Just because it wasn’t being conducted on the front pages of newspapers does not mean this was not an urgent in fact the number one priority of NSW Police.”
No particular ideology had been identified as a motivation behind a possible attack, but none were being ruled out, Hudson said.
Minns said it was “with great regret” that he could not guarantee antisemitic violence would not escalate further.
“There’s bad actors in our community,” he said.
“Badly motivated, bad ideologies, bad morals, bad ethics, bad people, They’re intent on doing harm to others in their 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.”
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The discovery comes after a spate of antisemitic attacks that sent shockwaves through Sydney’s Jewish community in recent months, including the firebombing of a Maroubra childcare centre on January 21.
Video of the centre ablaze showed the words “f— the Jews” sprayed in black paint on a wall. The building was unoccupied at the time, and there were no injuries. No arrests have been made over the blaze.
Four days earlier, the former home of Australian Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin was targeted in a firebombing, with two vehicles set ablaze, while other vehicles were vandalised with antisemitic graffiti in Dover Heights.
The home, which Ryvchin sold in 2023, was also splashed with red paint.
CCTV showed two people dressed in dark clothing pouring accelerant on the road before setting it alight. No arrests have been made.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said the council had been assured by authorities there was no ongoing threat to the Jewish or wider community, labelling the discovery “alarming”.
“We have also been assured that the matter is being thoroughly investigated by the police to get to the bottom of exactly what happened, who was involved and what their motives were. It would be inappropriate to comment further until the facts have been confirmed. Given the recent attacks against the Jewish community the sooner that happens, the better,” he said.
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