SYDNEY, Australia – The arrest of 17 people followed a week after the Prime Minister, John Howard, held a televised news broadcast announcing that Australia had received intelligence about a potential terrorist attack.
New South Wales (NSW) Police Commissioner, Ken Moroney tells CNN that Monday’s “arrests followed a lengthy operation where law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been monitoring and investigating the activities of a group allegedly intent on carrying out what we assess as some sort of terrorist act in Australia.”
Prosecutor Richard Maidment, says that the group was intent on “killing innocent men and women in Australia.”
The law enforcement and intelligence agencies worked together to arrest eight people in New South Wales and nine in Victoria. The two groups of men are not connected by name but by are connected by close relations.
One of the nine men arrested in Victoria, Abu Bakr, a prominent Islamic cleric is believed to be the leader of the group. Bakr is a supporter of al Qaeda and Bin Laden.
The arrests followed a large search which involved 22 warrants and the finding of firearms, computers, travel documents, and unidentified substances.
The charges that these men face include: acts in preparation of a terrorist act, membership in a terrorist group, and conspiracy to commit a terrorist act. And one man faces the charge of directing a terrorist organization.
Some of the members had received military training and they had pooled together money that would finance their plans.
Had it not been for Prime Minister Howard’s recall to Parliament, police would not have been able to arrest these men on the above charges. On Thursday, November 3, 2005, Parliament passed the amendments to anti-terror laws, which allow police to arrest and charge people who are in the process of planning a terrorist attack.
“It will be alleged in court that the following months of discussion,” according to CNN. “Individuals had moved to the point of planning some sort of activity including the purchase of potentially dangerous materials.”
Prosecutor Richard Maidment, said that these men had “been gathering chemicals of a kind that were used in the London Underground bombings.”
Due to these chemicals that were found and confiscated, NSW Commisioner, Moroney, said that the men were certainly planning bombings, “Chemicals, that when mixed, could have made a bomb.”
Ever since the September 11 attacks on the U.S., Australia has remained at a medium level security alert. Prior to, Australia has never suffered a major terror attack.