Two men appear in Aus court for funding, recruiting for Syrian al-Qaeda

Brisbane, Australia: The suspected brother of a suicide bomber killed in Syria and another alleged jihadist appeared in an Australian court on Thursday charged with funding and recruiting for al-Qaeda offshoot terrorists in the Middle East.

Omar Succarieh, 31, and Agim Kruezi, 21, appeared briefly in a Brisbane city Magistrates Court for the first since they were arrested Wednesday in a series of police raids in Brisbane and neighboring Logan that culminated a yearlong counterterrorism investigation.

Neither man entered a plea or applied for bail. They were remanded in custody to appear in the same court on October 17.

Both were charged with making preparations and raising funds for incursions into Syria and Iraq with intentions of engaging in hostile activity.

Succarieh, a driver from Brisbane, is the older brother of 27-year-old Ahmed Succarieh, who is widely reported to have used the alias Abu Asma al-Australi, and died in a car bomb blast at a Syrian army checkpoint in September last year. The family says the younger brother is alive.

Succarieh was charged with providing funds to al-Qaida offshoot Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as the Nusra Front.

Kruezi, an unemployed man from Logan, was also charged with recruiting people to join the Islamic State movement, another al-Qaida offshoot, to fight in Syria and Iraq. The maximum prison sentences that each man faces if convicted was not immediately clear.

AP