TIMES ONLINE: An Australian man has been charged with planning a terrorist act after police today foiled a plot by Islamic extremists to launch a suicide attack on army bases in Sydney and Melbourne.
Three other men are under arrest and a fifth is being questioned after a series of counter-terrorism raids across Melbourne shortly before dawn local time.
Around 400 police officers and members of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) swooped on 19 properties detaining several men, all Australian citizens of Somali and Lebanese background.
Authorities believe the group was at an advanced stage of preparing to storm an Army barracks in retaliation for Australia’s military involvement in Muslim countries. Members of the group had been observed carrying out surveillance on Holsworthy Barracks in Western Sydney and on other Army bases in Victoria.
Electronic surveillance also picked up discussions about how to obtain weapons to carry out what would have been the worst terror attack on Australian soil.
“The men’s intention was to get into the army barracks and kill as many as they could,” Tony Negus, Australian Federal Police acting commissioner said. They were “planning to carry out a suicide terror attack . . . a sustained attack on military personnel until they themselves were killed,” he said.
"This operation has disrupted an alleged terrorist attack that could have claimed many lives," he said. >>> Anne Barrowclough in Sydney | Tuesday, August 04, 2009
