A 14-year-old British boy has been charged with encouraging a beheading and inciting a terrorism attack on an Anzac Day parade in Australia, thousands of miles from his home, Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said yesterday.

Police said the boy was arrested on April 2 in Blackburn, northern England, after counter-terrorism officers examined “a number of electronic devices” which revealed communication with a man in Australia. This sparked an operation which culminated in hundreds of Australian police carrying out raids in Melbourne on Saturday and the arrest of five teenagers who Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said were planning an Islamic State-inspired attack on a World War I commemorative event this week.

Deborah Walsh, CPS deputy head of counter-terrorism, said the boy would face two charges of inciting terrorism overseas: that he incited another person to commit an act of terrorism during the Anzac parade in Australia with the aim of killing and/or causing serious injury to people and the second, that he incited another person to behead someone in Australia. The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is due to appear at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court today.

More than 200 officers took part in the Australian raids, which police said followed a month-long sting operation and resulted in the arrest of five men aged 18 and 19.

Meanwhile, yesterday thousands of Australians, New Zealanders and Turks gathered on Turkey’s Gallipoli peninsula ahead of the 100th anniversary of one of the bloodiest battles of World War I tomorrow.

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