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A handful of extremists with ties to an al-Qaida-linked group in Somalia planned to storm one of Australias largest military bases and launch a fight to the death with troops,police said on Tuesday.
Police revealed details of the alleged plot after arresting four suspects Australian citizens aged between 22 and 26 with Somali and Lebanese origins in pre-dawn raids on Tuesday on 19 houses in Melbourne,the culmination of a seven-month intelligence operation. A fifth man already in custody on an unrelated assault charge was also being questioned about the plot,police said.
Potentially this would have been,if it had been able to be carried out,the most serious terrorist attack on Australian soil, acting Australian Federal Police chief Tony Negus told reporters.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the plot underscored that Australia is still under threat from extremist groups at home and abroad. Australians will be concerned to hear about arrests of this nature in our midst, Rudd told reporters in Cairns. This is a sober reminder that the threat of terrorism to Australia continues.
Only one of the four suspects was charged,Nayef El Sayad,and he appeared briefly in court on a count of conspiring with four others to plan a terrorist attack. He did not enter a plea or seek bail. He faces life in prison if convicted.
Police allege the cells plan was to send a team of gunmen with automatic rifles on a suicide attack against Holsworthy Barracks,an army base on the outskirts of Sydney,that houses commandos trained in counterterrorism,a Black Hawk helicopter squadron and thousands of regular troops.
Details of the planning indicated the alleged offenders were prepared to inflict a sustained attack on military personnel until they themselves were killed, Negus said.
Police said extensive electronic surveillance and phone intercepts of the cell revealed details of the plot. I stalked around. It is easy to enter the Holsworthy barracks,one of the suspects allegedly said to another in an intercepted text message,The Age newspaper reported,citing a police agent.
Police did not allege a possible motive for the attack,or when it was planned for,but said the men were linked to the Somali Islamist organisation al-Shabaab and were trying to find a senior cleric who would approve the operation so they could become martyrs.
The purported plot is the second major coordinated attack plan exposed in Australia in recent years. Seven men were imprisoned in the past year for a nascent plot to target thousands of spectators in an attack on a big sporting event in Australia.
Australia became a staunch US ally in the war on terrorism after Sept. 11 and deployed forces to fight insurgents in Afghanistan. Asked if the deployment was making the country a terrorist target,Rudd said his government would not be swayed from the fight in that country because we must deal with where the terrorists are trained.
Negus said some of the suspects had traveled to Somalia and were believed to have fought alongside Islamic insurgents there. Al-Shabaab has been fighting to overthrow Somalias Western-backed transitional government. It has claimed responsibility for several high-profile bombings and shootings in Mogadishu,targeting Ethiopian troops and Somali government officials.
Police conducted intensive searches for hours at houses raided on Tuesday. Forensic officers in protective suits collected samples and searched at least one car parked in a driveway,while uniformed officers interviewed neighbors. Police did not say whether any firearms were seized.
Sayad was charged with conspiring with four unnamed people to plan a terrorist act. Magistrate Peter Reardon ordered him to remain in custody and reappear in court on October 26.
