[IsraelTimes] Police say public revelations about vehicle, believed to have been intended to blow up synagogue, compromised ongoing probe into series of antisemitic attacks in Australia
The discovery on Wednesday of a trailer full of explosives likely intended to blow up a synagogue in Sydney, Australia, may have prevented a "mass casualty event," New South Wales police officials said Thursday, while adding that reports on the matter had potentially compromised a police investigation into a string of antisemitic attacks.
Several people "around the periphery" of the planned attack have been arrested since the caravan packed full of explosives was discovered, police said, adding that the owner was already under custody for a separate antisemitic attack. However,
alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... no arrests directly linked to the incident have been made.
According to police, there is increasing evidence that the continued wave of attacks on Australia’s Jewish community is being "orchestrated" from above.
On Wednesday, after reports began appearing in the Australian press, NSW police confirmed that they had found a trailer containing explosives in the Sydney suburb of Dural on January 19. There was "some indication" that the explosives discovered were intended to blow up a synagogue, they said.
On Thursday, Sherlocks clarified that the trailer contained Powergel explosives stolen from a mining site, powerful enough to create a 40-meter blast wave that could trigger a "mass casualty event." Sky News Australia host Sharri Markson reported Thursday that the explosives were intended for Sydney’s Great Synagogue and the Sydney Jewish Museum in Darlinghurst. Police have not confirmed this.
Jewish community leaders charged that police were not doing enough to solve the case, and insisted that they shouldn’t have been kept in the dark about the incident.
"Until we know who the puppet masters are, and what their motives are, it’s impossible to point the finger with any degree of certainty about who’s responsible," said Peter Wertheim, co-chief executive officer of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ).
NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb responded by saying the incident was being investigated quietly, and that further public revelations of details to the media would make it more difficult to solve the case.
"The fact that this information is now in the public domain has compromised our investigation, and it’s been detrimental to some of the strategies we may have used," Webb said. Webb stressed that the threat had been "mitigated very early on," so there was no pressing need for the incident to be shared publicly.
NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Dave Hudson added that police had found indications of bad actors coordinating the attacks above the level of those perpetrating the attacks.
Regarding the individuals detained in connection with the caravan, he said police had not identified any "specific ideology that would cause them to commit the acts that they’ve committed, and that indicates to us that they are being orchestrated in some manner."
Three separate incidents of anti-Jewish graffiti were also reported in Australia Wednesday night, including antisemitic slurs painted on the wall of Jewish school Mount Sinai College at Maroubra.
Australia has seen a surge in antisemitic actions since the Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which sparked the war in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip.
The number of anti-Jewish incidents in Australia quadrupled in the year after the terror assault in southern Israel, according to data from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. These have included several arson attacks on synagogues and community centers in Sydney and Melbourne and the repeated spraying of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel graffiti on properties or vehicles in areas with large Jewish populations. Last month also saw a neo-Nazi ...adherents of a philosophy that was seen even at the time as pure evil, which makes them either consciously purely evil, or attention-seeking ratbags. Pick one, or both.... rally by the Melbourne parliament.
In December 2024, New South Wales launched Strike Force Pearl, whose team includes counter-terrorism and special tactics officers, to investigate antisemitic hate crimes in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, following an arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue. Australia’s federal police also launched Operation Avalite to investigate the surge in antisemitic crimes that has followed the Hamas attack in Israel.
Last week, Australian police revealed for the first time that they believe the ongoing scourge of antisemitic attacks in the country may be coordinated by foreign actors.
Three more incidents of antisemitic graffiti were found across Sydney on Thursday morning, leading Australian political leaders to warn of an escalation in hatred.
Slogans were daubed at a Jewish school, as well as at a nearby home and shopping center. It was not clear from reports if the home was Jewish owned.
Among the messages vandals wrote were “You fucking Jews,” “Jews are real terrorists,” “Jew dogs,” “Fuck the Jews,” and “You wanna buy a caravan,” the last an apparent reference to the Wednesday announcement of the discovery of an explosives cache in a trailer earlier this month.
Law enforcement found a list of Jewish targets together with a cache of Powergel — an explosive used in the mining industry — in Sydney’s outer suburb of Dural, state police said Wednesday. The amount uncovered could create a bomb with a blast zone of around 40 meters (130 feet), officers said.
News of the discovery — which police chiefs said was leaked to a newspaper, compromising a clandestine investigation — followed months of antisemitic arson, window-smashing, and graffiti in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s most populous cities, concentrated in the areas where many Jewish people live.
“It is utterly appalling and shameful,” Minns said. A police investigation into months of such crimes has prompted 10 arrests and Minns said he expected more.
RENEWED CLAIMS ABOUT COORDINATION BY FOREIGN INTERESTS
Since the Israel-Hamas war began in 2023 with the Palestinian terror group’s devastating invasion of Israel, targeted arson — including at a child care center — and graffiti attacks have soared in Sydney and Melbourne, home to 85 percent of the country’s Jewish population.
One person has been physically hurt — a worshiper who suffered burns in an arson attack that destroyed a Melbourne synagogue in December.
A joint counterterrorism team involving federal and state law enforcement is investigating the attacks, and this month its leaders said they were investigating whether criminals for hire were being paid by foreign actors to carry out the attacks. Australia Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw did not name what foreign interests the taskforce believed were responsible.
Update from the Times of Israel at 10:30 a.m. ET: Australian Jews hardening community sites, making themselves less obvious targets: police and private security stationed outside Jewish school as children return from summer break; some Jews removing kippas and mezuzahs.
[Rudaw] A migrant boat carrying Syrian passengers, including Kurds, has gone missing in the Mediterranean Sea after departing from Libya, families and a migrants colonists’ association said on Sunday.
"My brother left Libya for Italia at 01:30 am today. Their boat ran out of gasoline in the Mediterranean sea," Masoud Khalil Hamo, brother of one of the passengers, told Rudaw on Sunday.
"The news is true and we are aware of it," Peshraw Abdullah, a representative of the Returning Refugees Association, told Rudaw
"The passengers on the boat are from Western Kurdistan [northeast Syria or Rojava] and Syria. Unfortunately, they are also using the Aegean route to Greece," he said, noting that similar incidents occur on this route.
Every year, tens of thousands of people from the Middle East seek to escape endless crises of lack of employment, political instability, and corruption by joining thousands of others from scores of countries taking perilous routes to Europe.
Khalil, who is from Sare Kani (Ras al-Ain) in the north of Syria, said that there are around 30 people on the boat and are in a "very bad condition"
He added that his 24-year-old brother, Mustafa, is unmarried and has lost contact with him.
[Rudaw] A drone targeted a car on Monday killing four people and injuring another in Sulaimani province’s Hajiawa district, according to local police.
“A drone bombed a Toyota Land Cruiser in Hajiawa, killing four people,” Daru Qadir, spokesperson for the Raparin police, told Rudaw, adding that the victims have yet to be identified.
Hajiawa is affiliated to the Raparin administration.
One person was slightly injured as he was riding his motorcycle past the site targeted by the drone, according to Mustafa Rasoul, director of the Raparin police.
He added that two of the victims who lost their lives were women, while the other two were men.
The victims were from northeast Syria (Rojava), according to information obtained by Rudaw’s Abubakir Ismail. Locals told Rudaw that they witnessed the moment a white drone struck the car.
It is not clear who carried out the attack but Turkey has previously carried out many airstrikes in the area, targeting alleged Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) members.
[Rudaw] A camp in Erbil province housing refugees from Kurdish areas of western Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... (Rojhelat) was targeted by a suicide drone but did not cause any material damage or casualties, said the Kurdistan Region’s counterterrorism directorate.
"According to Kurdistan's counter-terrorism information, this evening Thursday January 30, 2025, at 17:40, an explosive-laden drone was directed at the East Kurdistan refugee camp at the foot of Mount Korek on the border of Erbil province. The drone missed its target, crashed and fell down, with no casualties or material damage reported," said the Erbil-based Directorate General of Counter Terrorism (CTD) in a Facebook post.
Meanwhile,
...back at the shootout, Butch clutched at his other leg...... Khidr Beg, a senior commander of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), told Rudaw that "about 5 to 6 kilometers from the East Kurdistan refugee camp, a strong explosion was heard, but we don't know yet if it was a drone or not."
He added that they "haven't clarified the incident and cannot accuse any country of carrying out the attack."
The camp is located near Khalidan subdistrict.
A security source from Khalifan told Rudaw on the condition of anonymity that "we haven't received any official information about it yet and have begun investigating the incident."
A security pact was signed between Iran and Iraq in March 2023 which saw Baghdad agree to disarm Kurdish opposition groups and secure the border regions. Iran had threatened to use military action if Baghdad failed to fulfill the agreement. In September same year, Baghdad announced that it had disarmed the exiled Kurdish groups on the border and that offices previously used by the groups had been evacuated.
[IsraelTimes] Two Hamas terrorists who participated in the killing and abduction of female surveillance soldiers at the Nahal Oz post on October 7, 2023 were eliminated by troops before the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip took effect, the IDF says.
An airstrike last month killed Haytham Hazem Hijazi Rajab, a member of Hamas’s elite Nukhba force in the terror group’s Shejaiya Battalion, according to the army.
Rajab had participated in the attack on the Nahal Oz post, and was involved in numerous more attacks on troops in Gaza amid the war, the IDF says.
The military also confirms that it took out Hamas terrorist Muhammad Abu Aseed in a September strike; it cleared a report on his killing earlier Thursday.
Abu Aseed was killed alongside other members of the terror group, the army says.
A member of Hamas’s Shati Battalion, the terrorist was involved in the attack on the Nahal Oz post and was seen abducting surveillance soldier Naama Levy, who was released last week.
The IDF waited until all seven abducted surveillance soldiers returned to Israel before publishing information about the strikes.
[IsraelTimes] Staff Sgt. Liam Hazi fatally hurt, five other troops wounded in exchange of fire with gunmen in building; police kill wanted Palestinian in Nablus
An Israeli soldier was killed and five were maimed during an exchange of fire with Paleostinian button men in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Thursday, the military announced.
Staff Sgt. Liam Hazi, 20, of the Kfir Brigade’s Haruv reconnaissance unit, from Rosh Haayin, was killed amid a major Israeli anti-terror operation in the northern West Bank launched last week.
Among the five maimed troops, one was listed at death's door, three were moderately hurt and one was in good condition, the army added.
According to an initial IDF probe, the Haruv troops exchanged fire with at least two button men after entering a building in the Jenin camp.
During the extraction of the maimed troops, an Israeli Air Force attack helicopter launched an Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... in the area.
The two button men apparently managed to flee the scene.
... as though they had never been... Separately on Thursday, police said members of its Yamam anti-terror unit killed a wanted Paleostinian in the West Bank city of Nablus.
The IDF, Israel Police and Shin Bet in a joint statement said that Qasim Aklik, 42, was involved in "planning and advancing terror attacks against Israeli targets."
Aklik, who was armed with a handgun, attempted to flee when the Yamam officers tried to arrest him, police said. The officers then opened fire, killing him.
The Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... said Aklik was a senior commander in the terror group’s Nablus Battalion.
The Paleostinian Authority health ministry said it was informed of Aklik’s death, meaning his body is being held by Israeli authorities.
A night earlier, 10 terror operatives, including five Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... members, were killed in a dronezap in the West Bank town of Tamun, close to Tubas.
The ongoing IDF offensive, dubbed Operation Iron Wall, has primarily focused on the city and refugee camp of Jenin but has also expanded to Tulkarem and the Tubas area.
At least 29 Paleostinian terror operatives have been killed so far in the offensive, the IDF has said.
“The soldiers fired toward the terrorists… and hits were identified,” according to a military statement, who says the suspects were spotted by members of the 636th Combat Intelligence Collection Unit who were on a stakeout.
No one was injured by the Molotov cocktails hurled at Route 60, the statement adds.
The IDF says troops last night eliminated two Palestinian gunmen in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank who earlier in the day killed a soldier and wounded five others.
Yesterday, Staff Sgt. Liam Hazi, 20, of the Kfir Brigade’s Haruv reconnaissance unit, was killed and five troops were wounded during an exchange of fire with two gunmen in a building in the Jenin refugee camp. The pair managed to flee following the incident.
Several hours later, the IDF says Haruv troops and other forces surrounded another building to which the gunmen fled, and following another exchange of fire, killed them.
The IDF says troops have killed some 18 gunmen and detained over 60 wanted Palestinians during an ongoing raid in Jenin and Tulkarem in the northern West Bank.
The offensive, dubbed Operation Iron Wall, was launched last week.
Over the past two days, the IDF says troops neutralized over 100 explosive devices in Jenin and seized numerous other weapons. In Tulkarem, another 30 bombs were neutralized and other weapons were captured, according to the military.
[IsraelTimes] Terror group appears to violate US-brokered truce days after IDF struck weapons convoy in southern Lebanon
The Israel Defense Forces on Thursday said it shot down a surveillance drone launched by the Hezbollah terror group toward Israel.
No sirens sounded amid the incident, the military noted in its statement, adding: "The IDF will not allow terror activities by the Hezbollah terror organization in Leb ...home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade.... , and will act to remove any threat to Israel or its citizens."
It was the first such incident since a ceasefire deal went into effect in late November, after more than a year of fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed terror group, and a violation by Hezbollah of the agreement, which forbids the terror group from operating south of the Litani River, some 30 kilometers (18 miles) from Israel. The deal allows Israel to respond to imminent threats.
According to the military, the drone Thursday was intercepted by the Israeli Air Force using a ground-based air defense system before it crossed the border into Israel.
The incident came in the wake of an Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... on a Hezbollah weapons convoy on Tuesday, and reports — unconfirmed by the military — of an Israeli dronezap Wednesday.
[IsraelTimes] The US military says it killed a senior operative of an al-Qaeda-affiliated group in an airstrike in northwest Syria on Thursday.
The airstrike, part of an ongoing effort to disrupt and degrade terrorist groups in the region, resulted in the death of Muhammad Salah al-Za’bir of the Hurras al-Din group,
… Guardians of Religion split from Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (Al Nusra) in 2018. Since then, the two groups have competed for influence and territory, with HTS periodically arresting Hurras al-Din members. America has been killing them for a while, a good thing even if it does help the new conquerers of Syria…
[IsraelTime] Overnight, Israeli fighter jets carried out a series of airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in the Beqaa Valley of eastern Lebanon, the military says.
The IDF says the targets, which “posed a threat to the Israeli home front and troops,” included a military facility with an underground weapons manufacturing site and infrastructure at border crossings between Syria and Lebanon which the terror group used to smuggle arms.
The strikes were carried out after Hezbollah launched a surveillance drone at Israel yesterday, which the military says was intercepted.
The IDF says the drone was a violation of the ceasefire agreement.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
...home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade....
