Operation Appleby – largest counter-terror raids
On 18 September 2014, days after the threat level was raised to High, more than 800 officers from NSW Police, the AFP and ASIO took part in Operation Appleby raids across western and north-western Sydney, with further searches in Brisbane’s south. Fifteen people were detained in Sydney. Authorities said the Sydney group had planned violent acts against members of the public, including random killings linked to Islamic State direction from overseas.
Omarjan Azari was charged over a 15 September 2014 telephone conversation with Australian Islamic State figure Mohammad Ali Baryalei about planning domestic killings, and over attempting to provide funds to Islamic State. In March 2019 the NSW Supreme Court sentenced Azari to 18 years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 13 years and 6 months after a jury convicted him of doing an act in preparation for, or planning, a terrorist act, together with the funding offence.
In September 2022 the AFP said a Sydney man was the final person convicted of a terrorism offence under Operation Appleby, bringing the investigation’s terrorism convictions to 16 over eight years. The AFP described the investigation as covering preparation for domestic terrorist acts, foreign incursions into Syria and Iraq, and funding of terrorist organisations.
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