Australian teens held for terror plan
Print Edition
FIVE Australian teenagers were arrested yesterday on suspicion of plotting an Islamic State group-inspired terrorist attack at a Veterans’ Day ceremony that included targeting police officers, officials said.
The suspects included two 18-year-olds who are alleged to have been preparing an attack at the ANZAC Day ceremony in Melbourne later this month, Australian Federal Police Acting Deputy Commissioner Neil Gaughan told reporters.
Another 18-year-old was arrested on weapons charges, and two other men, aged 18 and 19, were in custody and assisting police. All the arrests took place in Melbourne.
ANZAC Day is the annual April 25 commemoration of the 1915 Gallipoli landings — the first major military action fought by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during World War I.
Police said they believe the plot was inspired by the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, and was to have involved “edged weapons.”
“At this stage, we have no information that it was a planned beheading. But there was reference to an attack on police,” Gaughan said.
“Some evidence that we have collected at a couple of the scenes, and some other information we have, leads us to believe that this particular matter was ISIS-inspired.”
Australia’s government has raised its terror warning level in response to the threat posed by supporters of the IS group. Last September, the group’s spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani issued a message urging attacks abroad, specifically mentioning Australia.
Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan said at a separate news conference that the teens had links to Numan Haider, an 18-year-old who stabbed two Melbourne police officers and was subsequently shot dead in September. Haider had caught authorities’ attention months earlier over what police considered troubling behavior.
Phelan said the teens arrested yesterday were on officials’ radar for months, but the investigation was ramped up when it appeared they were planning a specific attack.
“This is a new paradigm for police,” Phelan said.
“These types of attacks that are planned are very rudimentary ... All you need is a knife, a flag and a camera and one can commit a terrorist act.”
One of the teens, Sevdet Besim, appeared in court yesterday on a charge of preparing for a terrorist act. He did not apply for bail and was ordered to reappear in court next week.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said the terrorism threat in Australia has escalated, with a third of all related arrests since 2001 occurring in the past six months. At least 110 Australians have gone to Iraq and Syria to fight alongside extremists, and the nation’s security agency is juggling more than 400 high-priority counterterrorism investigations.
In February, two men were charged with planning to launch an imminent, IS group-inspired attack after authorities said they appeared on a video threatening to stab the kidneys and necks of their victims.
In December, Man Monis, an Iranian-born, self-styled cleric with a criminal history, took 18 people hostage in a Sydney cafe and demanded he be delivered a flag of the IS group.
Monis and two of the hostages were killed.
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