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| Down Under |
| Imminent terrorist attack thwarted by action in 2 countries |
| 2005-11-08 |
| SECURITY forces in two states have interrupted an imminent terrorist attack with the potential to cause "great harm" in the community, Victoria's police chief said. In the largest anti-terrorist operation seen in Australia, Victorian, New South Wales and Federal Police, ASIO and the NSW Crimes Commission conducted simultaneous raids on properties in Melbourne and Sydney about 2.30am (AEDT) today, arresting 17 people on terrorist-related offences. One of those arrested in Melbourne was Abu Bakr, a Muslim cleric who made headlines in August for publicly stating his support for al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. The raids followed the announcement by Prime Minister John Howard last week of a possible terrorist strike on Australian soil, which prompted urgent amendments to legislation to widen the power of police to arrest and detain terror suspects. In a news conference today, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon said police feared a terrorist attack was about to occur. "We were concerned that an attack was imminent and we believe that we have sufficient evidence to go before the courts to show that," Mrs Nixon said. "It became more obvious to us as information became available to us that the way these people were behaving was of serious concern and that we needed to interrupt that activity and operation as soon as we could." Australian Federal Police (AFP) agent Frank Prendergast told the Melbourne news conference that computers seized during the raids in the city would be examined for data as police investigate links with overseas organisations. Authorities confirmed today they were examining connections between the men arrested overnight in Sydney and Melbourne and overseas networks. Agent Prendergast would not reveal which country or countries were being looked at, but said there was no specific evidence linking the men to the group behind the London bombings. "The investigation is on-going. The AFP and the other agencies have made extensive use of the AFP's overseas liaison network and are consulting widely with overseas agencies. "Terrorism is an international issue and whether groups are locally or internationally connected, there's no doubt that international events impact on what they're doing," he said. "We're investigating linkages, we're making inquiries overseas and I'm not prepared to go into specifics about those inquiries." Agent Prendergast said police were yet to determine the nature of the electronic data seized in the Melbourne raids. "We've seized computer equipment and computer storage media. It's too soon to really say what's on that and, again, that will be something that will come out in due course in court," Agent Prendergast said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #4 Leftist 'tard on Tim Blair's site declaring "there was no attack, no plan". |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-11-08 07:57 |
| #3 States in this case is referring to Victoria and New South Wales, not countries. |
| Posted by: Uleater Spanter2219 2005-11-08 07:04 |
| #2 The attack was thwarted by police action in 2 countries, not that 2 countries were the intended target. |
| Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-11-08 06:52 |
| #1 Where do you get"2 countries",Dan? I see no mention of another country being a target.The article mentions links,but not another country as a target. |
| Posted by: raptor 2005-11-08 06:50 |