A man accused of being a member of the self-proclaimed Islamic State group has been arrested by counter-terrorism agents over allegations that he instructed people on how to plan and conduct mass-casualty attacks from his base in Australia.
The Melbourne man, whom the Australian Federal Police alleges was a propagandist for the extremist group, is accused of sending about 10,000 documents, messages, images, videos and audio files relating to executions and torture.
The 65-year-old retiree allegedly pledged allegiance to the IS group between 2018 and 2020.
The man, a Somali-born Australian citizen, is alleged to have acted on the behalf of the terrorist group without travelling to the territory it controlled during conflict in the Middle East.
The scale of extremist material the man was accused of spreading put him among the top propagandists on the encrypted messaging platform he used, AFP acting assistant commissioner Paula Hudson said.
The man was arrested at a home in Carlton, in Melbourne's inner-north, on Wednesday morning.
The arrest followed an investigation that began with a referral from the Australian Border Force, which intercepted the man and searched his luggage at Melbourne Airport in November 2020 as he left for Egypt.