Osama's Aussie offspring
Cameron Stewart and Nick Leys
November 09, 2005
A MASSIVE terrorist attack on Australian soil has been narrowly averted after sweeping raids across Sydney and Melbourne led to the arrest of 17 members of a suspected terrorist cell.
One of those arrested, Melbourne man Abdulla Merhi, 20, is said to have been impatient to carry out Australia's first suicide bombing but was refused permission by the group. Another, a former bit-part actor in a TV drama, Omar Baladjam, 28, was shot in the neck after allegedly firing on Sydney police.
In the largest and most important anti-terror operation in the nation's history, hundreds of state and federal police officers in NSW and Victoria raided homes in the dead of night, believing an attack was imminent. Another man was taken away by police last night after federal officers and specialists from the hazardous chemicals and bomb squads hit another home in western Sydney.
The earlier raids – the culmination of an 18-month investigation – uncovered stockpiles of chemicals similar to those used in the London bombings in July.
Members of the group had also undergone military-style training, had guns and had downloaded bomb-making information from the internet, it was alleged.
The spiritual leader of the alleged terror cell is an Algerian-born radical cleric from Melbourne, Abdul Nacer Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr, who has publicly described Osama bin Laden as a great man and who supports violent jihad overseas.
One of the Sydney men arrested in the pre-dawn raids, Mohamed Ali Elomar, has family links to a NSW southern tablelands property exposed as a terrorist training camp five years ago.
All nine men in Melbourne were charged with intentionally being a member of a terrorist organisation between July last year and this month.
The charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years' jail. Mr Benbrika was also charged with directing a terrorist organisation. That offence carries a possible 25-year term.
The seven men in Sydney were charged with conspiring to manufacture explosives in preparation for a terrorist act. The 17th suspect, Mr Baladjam, is now being treated in hospital and is expected to be charged. Police and governments said the massive operation had prevented a potentially "catastrophic" terrorist attack, although they said no specific target had been identified.
"I'm satisfied that we have disrupted what I would regard as the final stages of a large-scale terrorist attack . . . here in Australia," NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said.
Victorian Premier Steve Bracks said he believed police had disrupted "probably the most serious preparation for a terrorist attack that we have seen in Australia".
In the Melbourne Magistrates Court, prosecutor Richard Maidment said the group had "no respect for human life".
They believed "it is permitted in certain circumstances, in pursuit of violent jihad (holy war), to kill innocent women and children", he said.
John Howard, who was accused by some last week of exaggerating the terrorist threat, said the emergency law passed by parliament last week had helped facilitate the arrests.
"We were advised that the change would strengthen the capacity of the authorities to respond to the situation that had been identified, and it is the view of the two police commissioners and the Victorian Premier that that is precisely what happened," the Prime Minister said.
However, AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty admitted last night that he had been worried that the emergency changes to the federal legislation might upset the operations. Mr Keelty also warned that there could be more arrests.
"The operation is a long way from being finished. This will take several months to put together in a form that will be required by the courts," he said.
In police statements tendered in the Melbourne Magistrates Court, the Melbourne accused are said to have engaged in military-style training at a rural property near Kinglake, in northeast Victoria, and had referred on numerous occasions to an online bomb-making notebook, The Vortex Cookbook.
Adam Houda, defence lawyer for the seven suspects charged in Sydney, described the arrests as "scandalous political prosecutions that shame this nation". "There is no evidence in these cases that terrorism was being contemplated by any particular person at any particular time or any particular place," he said.
Mr Maidment told the Melbourne court that the group purchased "massive quantities" of bomb-making equipment including glassware, thermometers, Bunsen burners and beakers.
According to police surveillance, Mr Merhi visited the home of Mr Benbrika in September last year to tell him he wanted to be a martyr for the cause of Islam and to ask if it was appropriate to engage in "jihad" in Australia. But Mr Merhi, who claimed he wanted to exact "revenge on the infidels" who were supporting the war in Iraq, was apparently told by Mr Benbrika to be patient, the court heard.
Victorian Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon said the terrorist threat was not connected to next year's Commonwealth Games, due to start in March, but said it had "the potential for great harm to be done to the community".
In Victoria, nine arrests were in Dallas, Hoppers Crossing, Fawkner, Preston, Coburg, Yarraville, Meadow Heights and Hadfield.
The eight NSW suspects were arrested in Lakemba, Belmore, Wiley Park, Greenacre, Illawong, Punchbowl, Hoxton Park, Condell Park, Ingleburn, Belfield, Bankstown and Kemps Creek.
Last night, AFP officers and specialists from the hazardous chemicals and bomb squads were raiding another western Sydney property in Glenview Avenue, Revesby. The modest, fibro Housing Department home is rented by a young man, his wife and two young children.
Armed police surrounded the property and waited for some time before the man emerged from the house and was taken away. Witnesses said police made him pull his shirt over his head.
They said he co-operated with police was taken away in one police car, before his wife and two young children were taken away in a separate car.
A tensions between police and local youths simmered in western Sydney late last night, a Molotov cocktail was thrown into a police car outside the Auburn police station. No officers were in the car at the time, and the fire inside the vehicle was quickly extinguished.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17187640%5E601,00.html
