Australia foils suicide attack on army base, four arrested: police

Writer: AFP

Published: 4/08/2009 at 06:59 AM

Australian police have arrested four people with alleged links to Somali Islamists who were planning a suicide attack on a military base, senior officers said on Tuesday.

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 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 intentions 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.

The suspects of Somali and Lebanese descent were arrested in a series of raids across the southeastern state of Victoria, Negus said.

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.

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.

Read more!