Australia foils suicide attack on army base

Writer: AFP

Published: 4/08/2009 at 07:59 AM

Australian counter-terrorist police Tuesday arrested four people in raids that foiled a Somali-linked plot to launch a suicide attack on a military base, senior officers said.

Police in Sydney in 2008. Australian police have arrested four people who were planning a suicide attack on a military base, senior officers said on Tuesday.

The men of Somali and Lebanese descent were arrested in the southeastern state of Victoria in an operation involving about 400 police, they said, adding the attack would have been the "most serious" on Australian soil.

"The alleged offenders were prepared to inflict a sustained attack on military personnel until they themselves were killed," said Tony Negus, acting chief commissioner of the Australian Federal Police.

"The men's intention was to go into these army barracks and to kill as many people as possible.... This would have been, if it had been able to be carried out, the most serious attack on Australian soil," he added.

He said the attack would have been carried out with firearms rather than explosives and added the group had been seeking a "fatwah" to justify its actions.

"Members of the group have been actively seeking a fatwah or religious ruling to justify a terror attack on Australia," Negus said, without giving further details.

Negus said members of the group had links with Somalia's Al-Qaeda-inspired Shebab group, which is fighting a deadly insurgency against that country's government.

He said some of the group travelled to Somalia to "participate in hostilities in that country."

A core group of some 150 police has been investigating the planned attack since January in a "massive physical and electronic surveillance operation," Negus said.

"Police will allege that the men were planning to carry out a suicide terrorist attack on a defence establishment within Australia involving an armed assault with automatic weapons," he said.

The announcement comes after Australian Islamic convert Shane Kent last week admitted plotting to kill thousands of people in an attack on a major sports event in Melbourne.

Eight members of the same extremist cell have already been jailed over plans to bomb the 2005 Australian Football League Grand Final, which attracted a crowd of 92,000.

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