5 arrested in connection with Sydney police worker’s killing

Over 200 police officers raided four different houses in Australia’s largest anti-terrorist raid this year, Reuters reports.

Australian police arrested five people in raids on several homes in Sydney on Wednesday in their investigation of the murder last week of a police accountant that they said was “linked to terrorism”.

On Friday, Jabar gunned down police worker Curtis Cheng out the front of Parramatta’s police headquarters.

The gunman, Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar, 15, was shot and killed by police at the scene.

The officer, who works at the State Crime Command headquarters, said that every officer had been ordered to wear their guns on them at all times this week, even while at their desks.

“It’s a very, very serious concern that in the heart of our community, there is attack planning that is underway and that may have led to what we saw on Friday”.

“Shortly after 8:30 am, police spoke with a teenage boy in relation to alleged posts on social media”, New South Wales Police said in a statement.

“What we would suggest, and we suspect, is that there was a few influence – whether it was ideologically, religious or politically motivated – that determined and influenced the 15-year-old to go and commit this horrendous act of violence”, she added.

“The 15-year-old deceased has not been a target of ours and is not somebody we would have assessed as a threat”, Ms Burn said.

Jabar hadn’t been investigated before, but a few of the men arrested in the Wednesday raids also got targeted past year.

However, a few of those arrested on Wednesday morning were.

“Recent events are a timely reminder for police to ensure that current security measures are appropriate to the current threat level”.

Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burn did not rule out further arrests and said it was an “unfortunate reality” that undetected lone wolves will continue to launch attacks on home soil.

Police are still urging calm within the community, as Deputy Commissioner Nick Kaldas told media on Monday that people must not allow the attack to “divide us, tear us apart, to start finger pointing at each other or to start taking revenge on each other”.

Mr Baird on Wednesday said while there had been “some isolated incidents”, he had asked the Education Department to accelerate programs aimed at countering radicalisation in schools.