Islamic State planned beheadings in Australia

Australian officials have prevented an Islamic State plot to carry out and film the beheading of a random person in Sydney, as part of a series of public executions intended to strike terror into the West.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Pre-dawn raids across Sydney and Brisbane led to the arrest of fifteen people and the seizure of balaclavas, military fatigues and weapons-including machetes and a gun.

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The raids involved more than 800 officers, and was the largest counter-terrorism operation in Australian history.

Australia's prime minister, Tony Abbott, said that the raids followed intelligence that a senior figure from the Islamic State had been directing terrorists belonging to the group in Australia to perform "demonstration killings."

"The exhortations, quite direct exhortations, were coming from an Australian, who is apparently quite senior in (the Islamic State), to networks of support back in Australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country," he told reporters in the Northern Territory.

"So this is not just suspicion, this is intent and that's why the police and security agencies decided to act in the way they have."

The raids followed intercepted phone calls in which men discussed kidnapping people from public streets, beheading them and posting the films of the executions on social media.

The plot was likened to the murder of Lee Rigby, a British soldier who was hacked to death on a street in London last year by two Muslims.

The acting commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, Andrew Colvin, said that those arrested had been plotting a violent attack on "the streets of (Australia's largest state) New South Wales".

"Police believe that this group that we have executed this operation on today had the intention and had started to carry out planning to commit violent acts here in Australia," he said.

"Those violent acts particularly related to random acts against members of the public. The decision was made by the experts that now was the time to move."

Michael Allnutt, a prosecutor involved with the case told a court that these terrorists plotted the "random selection of persons to rather gruesomely execute" with intent to "shock, horrify and clearly terrify the community".

"There is perhaps an unusual level of fanaticism in this particular matter," he said, adding that the immediate trigger for the arrest was a phone call that took place "only a couple of days ago".

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