http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4416254.stm

Australia foils 'terror attack'
Australian police say they have foiled a terrorist attack in the final stages of its preparation, after 16 people were arrested in Sydney and Melbourne.

New South Wales police chief Ken Moroney said a "potentially catastrophic attack" had been averted.

One suspect was shot and wounded during a raid in Sydney. Chemicals, weapons, and computers were seized, police said.

The operation came nearly a week after Australia's anti-terror laws were changed to give police greater powers.

Police raided 23 houses in Sydney and Melbourne early on Tuesday, as part of the country's largest counter-terrorism operation.

The raids involved about 500 police officers and followed a 16-month investigation, officials said.

"I'm satisfied that we have disrupted what I would regard as the final stages of a large-scale terrorist attack, or the launch of a terrorist attack," Mr Moroney told Australia's ABC radio.

Court appearances

Those arrested in Melbourne include Abu Bakr, an outspoken Algerian-Australian cleric who has in the past praised Osama Bin Laden as "a great man".

He was among nine men who appeared in court in the city on Tuesday, and were charged with membership of a "terrorist organisation".



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

He claims they received military-style training in rural Australia and had discussions about bomb-making.

Those arrested in Sydney are also due to appear in court.

"The members of the Sydney group have been gathering chemicals of a kind that were used in the London Underground bombings," Mr Maidment said, adding that Abu Bakr was the ringleader of both the Melbourne and Sydney groups.

Police said one of the suspects in Sydney was shot and seriously wounded after they came under fire. They said the suspect had refused orders to surrender.

There was no immediate comment from those arrested.

US ally

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

Prime Minister John Howard said the arrests vindicated the government's decision to rush through amendments to the anti-terror laws.

"This country has never been immune from a possible terrorist attack," he said in a televised news conference.

"It's important that we continue to mobilise all of the resources of the commonwealth and the states to fight terrorism."

The changes were enacted on Thursday, to make it easier for police to prosecute suspects believed to be planning attacks.

Mr Howard at the time said he had received credible intelligence of a "terrorist threat".

Australia is a key ally of the US in its "war on terror", and has sent troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There has never been a major terrorist attack on Australian soil, although 88 Australians died in the 2002 Bali bombings, and Australia's embassy in Indonesia was bombed in 2004.

Good on the Aussie fuzz. Regardless of your beliefs regarding the war on terror, I'm sure all those resident in Oz are glad to see the cops doing their job well.

Seems like they're using this to gain support for the horrible set of laws they've just passed.

* proposed.

It won't get passed without a fight.

This raid was timed awfully convenient. Don't want to insinuate bad faith, but it does make you wonder.

Don't know how I got the idea they'd already been passed, but my main point still remains.

There was something passed, but it was only a minor amendment changing "THE terrorist act" to "A terrorist act". The legislation being debated publically now has yet to be passed.

goddamn ryan o'reilly.


he runs everything.

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20051114/2005-11-14T070941Z_01_RID423570_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-SECURITY-AUSTRALIA-PLOT-DC.html

Sydney nuclear reactor terror plot target-police
By Michael Perry


SYDNEY (Reuters) - 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 liters 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.

Perhaps this is why there has never been a terrorist attack on Australian soil.

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Ahkmed: Lets attack australia!
Mohammed: One Sec..*Fap, Fap*.. Dirka-Dirka!

Actually, THIS is the real reason...