Police investigating after caravan full of explosives found in Sydney’s northwest
Sydney, Jan 29 (IANS) Australian police are investigating whether explosives found in a caravan days ago in Sydney, the capital city of Australia’s state of New South Wales (NSW), were intended to be used in an antisemitic attack.
The NSW police said on Wednesday that the caravan filled with explosives was found on a property in Dural, about 25 km northwest of central Sydney, on January 19.
Addressing a press conference, NSW Police Deputy Commissioner David Hudson said that there was “some indication” that the explosives were intended to be used in an antisemitic attack.
He said that the NSW Police is working with the Australian Federal Police, Australian Security Intelligence Organization as well as police in the neighboring states of Victoria and Queensland to investigate the incident.
Premier of NSW Chris Minns said that the full resources of the state have been deployed to confront the “very serious threat” to the community, Xinhua news agency reported.
Hudson said that the explosives were believed to have been obtained from a mining site and would have had a blast radius of around 40 metres. He said that there is no indication that there are more explosives in the community.
A NSW Police statement said that there is no ongoing threat to the community.
In another development, the victim of a fatal shooting in Melbourne’s northern suburbs on Tuesday morning has been identified as an underworld figure known as ‘The Punisher’.
Suleiman ‘Sam’ Abdulrahim, 32, was shot by multiple attackers in the underground car park of a hotel in Preston, 9 km north of central Melbourne, at about 10:30 am local time on Tuesday.
Victoria Police Homicide Squad Detective Inspector Dean Thomas told reporters that Abdulrahim died at the scene after a woman believed to be his girlfriend and police and ambulance crews attempted first aid.
“Family and friends are very, very distraught, and understandably so, they’ve lost a loved one,” Thomas said.
He said that the police believe the perpetrators of the targeted attack fled the scene in a white vehicle. Police are investigating whether a burnt-out Porsche found later in a nearby suburb is linked to the killing.
Abdulrahim, who previously served three years in prison over a fatal car crash, had previously survived several attempts on his life.
In 2022, he was shot eight times in the chest and stomach at a cemetery in Melbourne’s north. In May 2024, he escaped injury when a number of shots were fired at him as he was leaving his house.
Nine Entertainment newspapers reported that Abdulrahim recently went into hiding to escape a one million Australian dollar (625,532 US dollar) bounty on his life.
Thomas said on Tuesday that police had previously spoken to him about his safety and that investigators would try to establish how the shooters discovered his location.
–IANS
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