This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/704

Australian police raid Islamist groups who were planning attacks in Sydney and Melbourne

June 23, 2005

Raided ... a house in the Melbourne suburb of East Brunswick.

MIM: The usual suspects : The terrorists next door

"...The neighbour said the family had lived there for at least 10 years and mostly kept to themselves.

"They have people come at all hours of the night and they do strange things like swap cars at 1am.

"A car will pull up with three or four others and they will swap cars."

He said one of the men in the house had a long beard and occasionally wore Muslim dress..."

After the police left "a carload of Arabs pulled up at the house to have a big chat".

MIM:

This terrorist wannabe claimed he needed train station video footage to 'train as a taxi driver'

"...At least one member of the group was observed taking video footage of two Melbourne train stations and the Australian Stock Exchange in Collins Street.

When questioned earlier by agents, the suspect admitted he was filming the buildings but claimed he needed the footage to help him train as a taxi driver. .."

ASIO launches secret terror raids

June 23, 2005

http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1258&storyid=3330390

ASIO yesterday raided a series of houses after receiving intelligence that a radical Islamic group was plotting a terrorist attack on Australia.

The Daily Telegraph has learned that extremist cells in Sydney and Melbourne have been liaising on plans to carry out a terror assault.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House were named as targets but sources said the group intended to strike first in Melbourne.

The extremists have been secretly bugged talking about overseas terrorist incidents and revealing how they wanted to commit similar attacks in Melbourne.

About six Melbourne members have attended training camps in remote areas of Victoria during the past year.

Surveillance officers have confirmed the Melbourne cell has connections with a radical Islamic group in Sydney.

The Sydney group has been observed using small boats to observe the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

Yesterday's ASIO raids - in which Victoria Police and Australian Federal Police were also involved - were designed to disrupt the group before members were able to go ahead with their plans.

Authorities do not expect to charge members of the network at this stage - unless the raids turn up unexpected information.

ASIO and AFP agents have for months been ready to swoop if cell members moved to buy materials or looked like endangering lives.

One of the four Melbourne houses raided yesterday was in the city's northern suburb of Brunswick East, where ASIO officers, AFP agents and members of Victoria Police's security intelligence group searched a home from 8am to 3pm.

The Melbourne cell never reached the stage of nominating targets or discussing specific terrorist attacks.

"But they have shown a real intent to do something, that they actually want to do something," a source told The Daily Telegraph.

"They are talking a lot about terrorist attacks overseas and expressing extremist views and talking about doing something here to show support for those Islamic groups committing terrorist acts elsewhere.

"They do go off together on what they call training camps, where they go off and set themselves up on deserted properties.

"But they aren't training camps in the way al-Qaeda or Jemaah Islamiyah have terrorist training camps. It's more a case of hardening themselves up, starving themselves for days, living rough. A bonding experience.

"Other than that, they pray together at the same mosque, they meet each other regularly and share their extremist views.

"They have links with people in Sydney who have links with other extremist Islamic groups.

"But I wouldn't describe them as a tangible group with solid connections to any known terrorist group.

"Nevertheless, what they have discussed is disturbing enough to warrant breaking them up."

AFP agents at the Brunswick East Housing Commission property raided were granted entry without resistance.

"I woke up and found them about 8am, maybe it was earlier," a neighbour said. "There were four to five unmarked cars, people came and went."

The Lebanese family of five living at the address that was raided declined to talk to The Daily Telegraph yesterday.

A spokeswoman for Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock yesterday confirmed ASIO was involved in a series of searches in Melbourne.

She refused to say if further raids were planned.

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http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15699593-2,00.html

ASIO swoops on Melbourne Houses

COUNTER-terrorist officers have raided at least four Melbourne homes after uncovering evidence that Islamic extremists were planning attacks on prominent city landmarks.

At least one member of the group was observed taking video footage of two Melbourne train stations and the Australian Stock Exchange in Collins Street.

When questioned earlier by agents, the suspect admitted he was filming the buildings but claimed he needed the footage to help him train as a taxi driver.

The ASIO officers, armed with warrants and supported by armed police, entered homes across Melbourne yesterday searching for evidence of terrorist-related activity.

At least four people have been questioned by ASIO in Melbourne this week as part of the investigation, named Operation Pandanus. Two others are the focus of inquiries in Sydney.

Amendments to the ASIO Act introduced last year make it illegal to reveal how the questioning of the four people was conducted, or what answers were given.

Police had believed that several of the men they had focused on in both states had conducted paramilitary training with Lashkar-e-Taiba in Afghanistan before amendments were made to counter-terrorism laws in July 2002.

One of the raids was on a private home in East Brunswick in Melbourne's inner north, a suburb that contains several of the city's more radical Muslim organisations and mosques.

A neighbour who saw the East Brunswick raid said the occupants were an "Arabic" family of five, which included two sons in their early 20s.

The neighbour claimed to have overheard Australian Federal Police officers saying they had found a weapon.

The occupants of the house last night declined to be interviewed.

Despite having authority to use force to enter the premises, no forced entry to any of the Melbourne properties was necessary.

"ASIO conducted a series of enter-and-search operations in Melbourne this morning in conjuction with Victoria Police and the Australian Federal Police," a spokeswoman for Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said last night.

"ASIO powers are used judiciously and only under warrant. Authorities took appropriate and reasonable action to secure premises in order to facilitate the execution of the warrant."

The neighbour who saw the raid on the house in Lowan Street, East Brunswick, said up to 20 police and officials in "five or six cars" spent the day at the house.

The neighbour, who asked not to be identified, said the occupants of the house were a mother and father, two sons in their early 20s and a daughter aged about 19.

The neighbour said the family had lived there for at least 10 years and mostly kept to themselves.

"They have people come at all hours of the night and they do strange things like swap cars at 1am.

"A car will pull up with three or four others and they will swap cars."

He said one of the men in the house had a long beard and occasionally wore Muslim dress.

He said the ASIO and AFP agents spent most of the day at the property searching it and speaking to the occupants.

"All the occupants were home when the police came and one arrived home later in morning - they read him something and then took him inside. They took lots of stuff away in bags."

After the police left "a carload of Arabs pulled up at the house to have a big chat".

The eight-month intelligence probe was launched after an informant contacted Victoria Police. The NSW Crime Commission and Counter Terrorism Command were also involved in the operation.

The latest raids follow a series of foiled terror attacks on Australian soil in recent years.

While five men have faced terror-related charges, three have allegedly planned to carry out the strikes.

The first, Jack Roche, plotted to bomb the Israeli embassy in Canberra, and has since been convicted of planning for acts in preparation for a terrorist attack. He is currently serving nine years' jail.

In December 2003 Zac Mullah was charged with similar offences after threatening to shoot ASIO officers. He was found not guilty, but convicted of a lesser charge.

Three other men are due to face trial on terrorism charges later this year.

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Australian police raid possible terror suspects homes

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1119406734690

Authorities have raided a series of houses in southern Australia after the country's top spy agency received intelligence that a radical Islamic group was planning terrorist attacks on Australian landmarks, media reports said Thursday.

Four houses in the city of Melbourne were raided on Wednesday by officers from the Australian Federal Police, or AFP, and Victoria state police, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The raids were carried out after the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, or ASIO, uncovered information that terrorist cells in Sydney and Melbourne were planning to attack Sydney's landmark Opera House and the Harbor Bridge, the paper said.

The newspaper also alleged members of the group had been secretly recorded talking about overseas terrorist attacks, and saying they wanted to carry out similar attacks in Melbourne.

Several members of the group had attended training camps in remote areas of Victoria state, and had connections with a radical Islamic Sydney group that has allegedly been spotted using small boats to spy on the Opera House and Harbor Bridge, the paper said.

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Philip Ruddock confirmed that a series of raids had taken place Wednesday, but refused to comment on the nature of the operation.

"There's been a series of enter and search operations in Melbourne, and that's been undertaken by ASIO in collaboration with the Victorian police and the AFP," said the spokeswoman, Charlie McKillop.

Victoria state police and the AFP both refused to comment on the investigation.

The Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported Thursday that the information was uncovered during a 10-month investigation, called Operation Pandanus, and that officers were believed to have interviewed up to four people in Melbourne and two in Sydney in connection with the raids.

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MIM: Malayasia says Australia 'acted improperly' for warning citizens of terrorist plot to kidnap tourists . The government must be upset that the corrupt officials couldnt tip off the terrorists first that the Australians were on to them.

http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news.php?id=141412

Syed Hamid Says Australia Acted Improperly

KUALA LUMPUR, June 23 (Bernama) -- Australia acted improperly by issuing a warning of possible terrorist plots to kidnap westerners in this country before confirming it with Malaysia, Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar said.

He said if there was such a possibility, the best thing to do would be to inform the Malaysian authorities.

"There is a channel of communication between Malaysia and Australia. We cannot be conducting investigation based on allegations that come out from the media," he told Bernama Thursday night after meeting his counterpart from South Africa Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma.

Dlamini Zuma is in Malaysia to attend the inaugural meeting of the Malaysia-South Africa Joint Commission which began on Tuesday.

A Reuters report said Australia had warned on Thursday of possible terrorist plots to kidnap westerners from Malaysian coastal resorts and popular diving sites off the east coast of Sabah.

"We have received credible reports that terrorists are planning kidnapping attacks targeting resorts frequented by foreigners," it quoted Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs in an updated travel advisory on its web site (www.smartraveller.gov.au).

Syed Hamid said Australia should cooperate with Malaysia's security authorities if it had information of such plots.

"This thing should be done very queitly between the law enforcement agencies. If you announce it through the media and the allegation is made, it makes investigation difficult," he said.

Asked on the report quoting an Australian spokesman as saying the country's High Commission in Kuala Lumpur had consulted the Malaysian government, Syed Hamid said: "If they have consulted us why should they make that announcement?"

He said Malaysia viewed seriously information from any party concerning terrorists.

"Malaysia is very mindful of any information and we will do investigation but investigation needs to be done very quietly," he said.

-- BERNAMA

This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/704