Australia Makes Arrests on WOT

[Annie]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051108/ap_on_re_au_an/australia_terror_arrests

17 Terror Suspects Arrested in Australia

By MIKE CORDER, Associated Press Writer 8 minutes ago

Australian authorities arrested 17 terror suspects on Tuesday — including a prominent radical Muslim cleric sympathetic to Osama bin Laden — and said they had foiled a major terror attack on the country by men committed to "violent jihad."

The Australian Federal Police said the men were arrested in Sydney and Melbourne in coordinated raids that also netted evidence including weapons and apparent bomb-making materials. A prosecutor said the cleric, Abdul Nacer Benbrika — also known as Abu Bakr — was the ringleader.

"I was satisfied that this state was under an imminent threat of potentially a catastrophic terrorist act," said New South Wales Police Minister Carl Scully.

Police commissioner Graeme Morgan said one of the men arrested was shot and wounded by police in the raids, which followed a 16-month investigation.

Police declined to give details of the likely target of the attack, but Victoria state police chief Christine Nixon said that next year's Commonwealth Games, to be staged in Melbourne, were not a target.

Prime Minister John Howard thanked security forces in a nationally televised news conference.

"This country has never been immune from a possible terrorist attack," he said. "That remains the situation today and it will be the situation tomorrow. It's important that we continue to mobilize all of the resources of the commonwealth and the states to fight terrorism."

Abu Bakr — an Algerian-Australian who has said he would be violating his faith if he warned his students not to join the jihad, or holy war, in Iraq — was among nine men who appeared Tuesday morning in Melbourne Magistrates Court charged with being members of a terror group.

Prosecutor Richard Maidment told the court the suspects had formed a terrorist group to kill "innocent men and women in Australia."

"The members of the Sydney group have been gathering chemicals of a kind that were used in the London Underground bombings," Maidment said. He said Abu Bakr was the leader of the group.

"Each of the members of the group are committed to the cause of violent jihad," he added, saying they underwent military-style training at a rural camp northeast of Melbourne.

Seven of the suspects, including Abu Bakr, were ordered detained until a court appearance on Jan. 31. Two others were applying to be released on bail.

In an August interview with the ABC, Abu Bakr said that although he is against the killing of innocents, he could not discourage his students from traveling to Afghanistan or Pakistan to train in terrorist camps.

Abu Bakr told the ABC he is not involved with any terror cells in Australia. However, he said he supports al-Qaida's aims and praised the group's leader.

"Osama bin Laden, he is a great man," Abu Bakr said. "Osama was a great man before 11 September. They said he did it and until now nobody knows who did it."

Australia has never been hit by a major terror attack, but its citizens have repeatedly been targeted overseas, particularly in neighboring Indonesia.

Last year, the country's embassy in Jakarta was badly damaged by a suicide bomber, and dozens of Australians were killed in bombings in 2002 and last month on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

Howard's opponents say his strong support for the U.S.-led war in Iraq and decision to send troops there and to Afghanistan have made an attack on Australia inevitable.and the excuse for the attacks on France, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and Belgium?

Just last week, Howard warned that Australian authorities had received specific intelligence about an attack on the country and pushed through Parliament changes to existing anti-terrorism laws to allow police to arrest people involved in the early stages of planning an unspecified terror attack. Nixon said some of the arrests Tuesday were made possible by the new legislation.

 

[Annie]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051114/ts_nm/security_australia_plot_dc

Sydney nuclear reactor terror plot target

By Michael PerryMon Nov 14, 9:56 AM ET

Eight Sydney men arrested on terrorism charges may have been planning a bomb attack against the city's nuclear reactor, police said on Monday.

Their Islamic spiritual leader, also charged with terrorism offences, told the men if they wanted to die for jihad they should inflict "maximum damage," according to a 21-page police court document.

The document outlines how the men, arrested last week in the nation's biggest security swoop, bought chemicals used in the London July 7 bombs, had bomb-making instructions in Arabic and videos entitled "Sheikh Osama's Training Course" and "Are you ready to die?"

Under the heading "Targets," police said three of the men were stopped near Sydney's Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in December 2004. A security gate lock had recently been cut.

Australia, a staunch U.S. ally with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, has never suffered a major peacetime attack on home soil. The country has been on medium security alert since shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

The document said six of the men went on "hunting and camping trips," which police described as jihad training camps, in the Australian outback in March and April 2005.

"This training is consistent with the modus operandi of terrorists prior to attacks," the police document said, adding one man attended a training camp in Pakistan in 2001.

"EXTREMIST ADVICE"

Police said a Melbourne-based Muslim cleric, arrested in the security swoop and charged with terror offences along with eight other men in Melbourne, was the spiritual leader of the Sydney and Melbourne groups.

Muslim teacher Abdul Nacer Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr, gave "extremist advice and guidance" and "has publicly declared his support of a violent jihad," the document said.

At a February meeting Benbrika talked to the Sydney men about fighting those who opposed Sharia law.

"If we want to die for jihad, we have to have maximum damage. Maximum damage. Damage their buildings, everything. Damage their lives," said Benbrika, according to the document.

But Benbrika said the men needed their mothers' permission to go on jihad.

Police said the men were an extremist sub-group of the religious Ahel al Sunna wal Jamaah Association, a Sunni Islamic group that follows a fundamentalist jihad ideology. They said the group had little or no respect for Australian law or society.

In Australia's biggest counter-terrorism swoop last week, 18 men were arrested and charged with offences including acts in preparation of a terrorist attack, being a member of a terrorist group and conspiracy to commit a terrorist act.

Nine men were arrested in Melbourne and nine in Sydney, one of whom was transferred to Melbourne on Monday. All have been remanded in custody and no pleas have been entered.

Police said the Sydney men had bought chemicals to produce "peroxide-based explosives" and had a computer memory stick containing instructions in Arabic to make explosives.

Between August and November 2005 the Sydney men had bought or ordered hundreds of litres of chemicals, steel drums, batteries, plastic piping, circuit kits, stopwatches and ammunition.

Police said during raids on the men's homes they seized chemicals, boxes of ammunition and firearms, machetes, samurai swords and books, cassettes and videos on terrorism and jihad.

During Benbrika's Melbourne court appearance last week, police said the cleric called bin Laden a "great man" that defends Muslims fighting U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Police told the court that one man had expressed a desire to become a "martyr" in Australia.

The Australia Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) earlier this month said for the first time that Australia had home-grown extremists, some of whom had trained overseas. Muslims make up 1.5 percent of Australia's 20 million population.