Australia foils terrorist plot to attack army base

[mr anderson]

Australia foils terrorist plot to attack army base

Australian Federal Police brief press release
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALhFa22JzBo

Australia ramps up anti-terror legislation - (July 23)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10586106

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFf0Dndc-gs - Terrorism still a threat: Prime Minister (August 4, 2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzDqbpWuOPU - Head of ASIO warns of Australian terrorism threat (July 30, 2009)

The sobering element to emerge from today's development is the reminder to all Australians that the threat of terrorism is alive and well and that this requires vigilance on the part of our security authorities and we propose to maintain that vigilance into the future. - Mr Rudd said.

By DAVID CROSLING (AP)

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iF43nm01n64aGygZE0BvOuQKMp3wD99RTOCG0

MELBOURNE, Australia — Australian police said Tuesday they have thwarted a terrorist plot in which extremists with ties to an al-Qaida-linked Somali Islamist group planned to invade a military base and open fire with automatic weapons until they were shot dead themselves.

Some 400 officers from state and national security services took part in 19 raids on properties in Melbourne, Australia's second largest city, before dawn Tuesday, arresting four men and detaining several others for questioning, police said.

Australian Federal Police Acting Commissioner Tony Negus said the raids followed a seven-month surveillance operation of a group of people with alleged ties to al-Shabaab, an Islamist organization based in that country's south that has been fighting to overthrow Somalia's transitional government.

"Police will allege that the men were planning to carry out a suicide terrorist attack on a defense establishment within Australia involving an armed assault with automatic weapons," Negus told reporters. "Details of the planning indicated the alleged offenders were prepared to inflict a sustained attack on military personnel until they themselves were killed."

Holsworthy Barracks on the outskirts of Sydney was one of the group's potential targets, and surveillance had been carried out at other bases, he said, declining to identify them.

"This operation has disrupted an alleged terrorist attack that could have claimed many lives," he said.

Negus said the investigation had also found that some of the group had traveled to Somalia "to participate in hostilities" there.

All four arrested are Australian citizens of Somali or Lebanese descent and aged between 22 and 26, police said.

One of the suspects, Nayes El Sayad, was formally charged in Melbourne Magistrate's Court with conspiring to plan a terrorist attack, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Another suspect, Saney Aweys, also appeared in court, where police sought and were granted permission to detain him longer without charge for questioning.

Neither man formally entered any plea, though Aweys told the magistrate he had no connection to the other suspects.

Federal police agent David Kinton told the court that police evidence included intercepted phone calls and text messages between the suspects. The Age newspaper reported on its Web site that one of the messages referred to the Holsworthy base, saying: "I stalked around. It is easy to enter."

Negus said authorities involved in the massive surveillance operation decided to move against the group after carefully weighing up how advanced the attack plan was.

He said the group was actively seeking a fatwa, or Islamic religious ruling, approving their plans for the Australian attack. Negus did not say whose approval was being sought.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the plot underscored that Australia is still under threat from extremist groups enraged that the country sent troops to join the U.S.-led military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"As the Australian government has said consistently, there is an enduring threat from terrorism at home here in Australia as well as overseas," Rudd told reporters in the northern city of Cairns. "This is a sober reminder that the threat of terrorism to Australia continues."

Rudd said the government did raise Australia's terrorist alert level as a result of the plot because authorities had advised him that was not necessary.

Police sealed off several houses in Melbourne after the raids and were conducting intensive searches. Forensic officers in protective suits collected samples and searched at least one car parked in a driveway, while uniformed officers interviewed neighbors.

Terrorist violence is extremely rare in Australia — a 1978 bombing near the Hilton Hotel that killed two is the best-known incident — and no attacks have been carried out on Australian soil since the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. raised security threat levels worldwide.

But dozens of Australians have died in terrorist attacks overseas, mostly in Indonesia including the 2002 bombings in Bali that targeted nightclubs frequented by Australians and other foreigners.

The Somali-linked plot Tuesday is the second major coordinated attack plan exposed in Australia in recent years. Seven men were imprisoned in the past year for involvement in a nascent plot to target thousands of spectators in an attack major sporting events in Australia.

Negus said the Somali-linked plot, if it had been carried out, could have been the most serious terrorist attack on Australian soil.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Australia introduced tough new counterterrorism laws that grant police and security agencies strong surveillance and detention powers, and stiffened prison sentences for convicted terrorists. Australia does not have the death penalty.

Al-Shabaab, which conducts frequent attacks in Somalia, is seeking to overthrow the Horn of Africa nation's Western-backed government and establish an Islamic state. The group has claimed responsibility for several high-profile bombings and shootings in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, targeting Ethiopian troops and Somali government officials. It has also killed journalists and international aid workers.

The U.S. State Department says al-Shabaab has provided a safe haven to al-Qaida "elements" wanted for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The two groups have long been suspected of working together, but they have not announced a formal alliance. Al-Qaida has operations in North Africa, Yemen and Iraq.

Associated Press writers Kristen Gelineau and Rohan Sullivan in Sydney contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.  

[mr anderson]

The Australian defends coverage of terror plot raids

Staff reporters | August 04, 2009
Article from:  The Australian

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25880203-31477,00.html

THE Australian's editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell has rejected accusations by Victoria Police that its coverage of this morning's terror raids had endangered officers.

The Australian became aware of the planned raids a week ago but agreed, in the interests of national security, with the Australian Federal Police to withhold publication until the morning of the raids.

In a complex logistical exercise, The Australian held back its coverage of the raids until later editions of the newspaper, which were not available for sale until after the raids, and altered its online publishing schedule to ensure Cameron Stewart's exclusive reports did not appear on The Australian's website, or anywhere else on the internet, until the raids had begun.

However, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland said this morning he was “extremely disappointed that the details of this operation have leaked in the way that they have”.

“... We will be vigorously pursuing the leak from my end, and I expect that fed authorities will be doing the same thing,” Mr Overland said.

He said he had been told that copies of the newspaper were publicly available at 1.30am (AEST) in Melbourne, well ahead of the raids.

The Australian does not accept that the paper was available for sale at this time.

Mr Mitchell said: “The Australian complied with the deal it had with the AFP on the story. The AFP informed Simon Overland of this deal. At no time was The Australian asked not to publish last night. No papers on sale before the raids included the terror story.

He added: "All early copies of the paper on sale before early morning led with the Godwin Grech story. "

"Simon Overland is wrong. This is his sour grapes about not getting enough credit for Victorian police and him protecting himself against complaints from Victorian editors.

Stewart said he could have published earlier but went to the AFP for comment.

" ... They said look please don't publish because you might compromise the operation," he told Sky News.

"We listened to their arguments and accepted them entirely. We said please nominate to us the day when we can publish.  They nominated today and we did publish."

AFP acting Chief Commissioner Tony Negus said: “The Australian spoke to the AFP last week, we consulted with the other agencies involved and The Australian agreed to hold off on publication of their story until today.

“As Simon said it is unfortunate that it was published before the execution of the warrants, we expected it would be later in the morning.”

Mr Overland said The Australian's stories posed “an unacceptable risk to the operation and an unacceptable risk to our staff, it's a risk that I take very seriously and is a cause for great concern.

"I have discussed this with Acting Commissioner Negus this morning and we are both extremely concerned that has occurred, and as I said I will be vigorously pursuing the leak at my end.

"I am also concerned, I don't think the reporting in The Australian this morning did do due justice to the joint nature of this investigation, because it has been a joint investigation."

[mr anderson]

Terrorism plot: suspects in court

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/04/2645762.htm

Five men being questioned over an alleged terrorist conspiracy had sought a religious ruling to authorise an attack in Australia, a court has heard. Their arrests come after a seven-month counter-terrorism operation and police raids across Melbourne this morning.

It is alleged five men were planning to carry out an armed attack on the Holsworthy army base in Sydney.

The Melbourne Magistrates Court heard some of them discussed obtaining a religious ruling from overseas or interstate in support of their alleged plans. One of the suspects, 25-year-old Nayef El Sayed of Glenroy, has been charged with a terrorism-related offence.

He appeared in court today and was remanded in custody. Federal Police also won an application to further question three other suspects who appeared in court today but have not been charged. A fifth suspect is already in custody on other matters.

Raids

About 400 law enforcement officers took part in the series of raids that led to today's arrests. The 19 raids took place across Melbourne and regional Victoria. The Australian Federal Police Acting Chief Commissioner, Tony Negus, says the operation was the result of seven month's work by several different agencies.

He says more arrests are possible.

"There are further inquiries being conducted both in Australia and overseas," he said.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, says Australia will not be increasing its terror alert level. But he says today's events are a strong reminder.

"The threat of terrorism is alive and well and this requires continued vigilance," he said.

Call for calm

Some of those arrested have a Somalian background and Islamic groups are urging people not to seek retaliation against Melbourne's African community. Shereen Hassan, vice-president of the Islamic Council of Victoria, says Muslims have been shocked by the raids and are calling for calm amid fears of a backlash.

"There are fears that there will be a backlash against the Muslim community and the Somali community," she said.

"But we have faith that the overwhelming majority of Australians will not react in this way and remain calm.

"[We] urge the wider community and the media to respect the privacy of the families concerned.

"The overwhelming majority of Australian Muslims unequivocally condemn all forms of terrorism."

Mohamed Baaruud from the Somalia Advocacy Action group says the community cannot believe some Somali Australians have been implicated.

"We are all shocked," he said.

"This is the last thing we were expecting.

"Our community came to Australia about 17 years ago when the civil war started in Somalia and it took us a long time to recover from the trauma that we have experienced in our country of origin and start a new life here in Australia."

Doctor Jamal Rifi from the Lebanese Muslim Association says the authorities are to be congratulated for preventing the alleged attack.

"We'll do our best for anyone who will have any information to actually contact the relevant authority and to work cooperatively to uncover any or similar events that may take place," he said.

New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione says authorities feared the group was planning to carry out its attack in the very near future.

"It was likely imminent and that was part of the reason behind moving as we have," he said.

Security

NSW Premier Nathan Rees says he is satisfied the security at Sydney's Holsworthy Barracks is adequate. The Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, says security at Holsworthy Barracks was stepped up earlier this year, shortly after police became aware of the alleged plot. Private guards are in charge of perimeter security at Holsworthy and other army bases.

Mr Rees says he has no problems with the arrangements in place at the state's military facilities.

"I have every confidence that the Australian Defence Force is more than adequately capable of looking after their assets, their bases and so on," he said.

Newspaper investigated

Meanwhile, Victoria Police is also investigating The Australian newspaper for publishing details of the raids about the time they were occurring. Victoria Police claims the story was available before some of the arrests took place, and could have compromised the operation. But The Australian says the story only ran in its late edition, which were not available until after the raids. It says its online publishing schedule was altered to ensure the story was not made public until the raids had occurred.

Victoria Police chief commissioner Simon Overland says he will investigate the timing of the story.

'Matter of time'

In other developments, a Somali community leader and Islamic scholar says he warned the Federal Government two years ago that a terrorist incident could occur in Australia. Dr Herse Hilole, now a resident academic at the International Islamic University in Kuala Lumpur, told The World Today that he has expected such activities.

"My suspicion was that young Somali Muslims could be or may be used in the future to carry some terrorist activities in Australia," he said.

He criticised the Federal Government's response to his warning two years ago.

"The response at the beginning was good but the current Government of Australia ... [it] seems that they did not take this seriously," he said.

"I proposed last year a project to help this situation but my project was rejected by the Government."

[Brocke]

Terrorism plot: suspects in court


Newspaper investigated

Meanwhile, Victoria Police is also investigating The Australian newspaper for publishing details of the raids about the time they were occurring. Victoria Police claims the story was available before some of the arrests took place, and could have compromised the operation. But The Australian says the story only ran in its late edition, which were not available until after the raids. It says its online publishing schedule was altered to ensure the story was not made public until the raids had occurred.

Victoria Police chief commissioner Simon Overland says he will investigate the timing of the story.

Hmm, leaked information...story ready to publish before raids...

INSIDE JOB!!!

[mr anderson]

Got to love how the Federal Police uniforms are now all black


Police have cordoned off a street in Glenroy and have set up a forensic tent. (ABC News: Gus Goswell)

[EvadingGrid]

Some how I do not think that a Raid on REAL Terrorists would be covered by a gentlemans agreement called a Press Embargo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_embargo

In journalism and public relations, a news embargo or press embargo is a request by a source that the information or news provided by that source not be published until a certain date or certain conditions have been met. The understanding is that if the embargo is broken by reporting before then, the source will retaliate by restricting access to further information by that journalist or his publication, giving them a long-term disadvantage relative to more cooperative outlets. They are often used by businesses making a product announcement, by medical journals, and by government officials announcing policy initiatives; the media is given advance knowledge of details being held secret so that reports can be prepared to coincide with the announcement date and yet still meet press time. In theory, press embargoes reduce inaccuracy in the reporting of breaking stories by reducing the incentive for journalists to cut corners in hopes of "scooping" the competition.

Embargoes are usually arranged in advance as "gentlemen's agreements". However, sometimes publicists will send embargoed press releases to newsrooms unsolicited in hopes that they will respect the embargo date without having first agreed to do so — the phrase "For Immediate Release" often found at the top of press releases indicates that the information in the release is not embargoed.

[mr anderson]

Some how I do not think that a Raid on REAL Terrorists would be covered by a gentlemans agreement called a Press Embargo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_embargo

In journalism and public relations, a news embargo or press embargo is a request by a source that the information or news provided by that source not be published until a certain date or certain conditions have been met. The understanding is that if the embargo is broken by reporting before then, the source will retaliate by restricting access to further information by that journalist or his publication, giving them a long-term disadvantage relative to more cooperative outlets. They are often used by businesses making a product announcement, by medical journals, and by government officials announcing policy initiatives; the media is given advance knowledge of details being held secret so that reports can be prepared to coincide with the announcement date and yet still meet press time. In theory, press embargoes reduce inaccuracy in the reporting of breaking stories by reducing the incentive for journalists to cut corners in hopes of "scooping" the competition.

Embargoes are usually arranged in advance as "gentlemen's agreements". However, sometimes publicists will send embargoed press releases to newsrooms unsolicited in hopes that they will respect the embargo date without having first agreed to do so — the phrase "For Immediate Release" often found at the top of press releases indicates that the information in the release is not embargoed.

Australia ramps up anti-terror legislation - (July 23)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10586106

Australia is preparing to expand its arsenal of laws against terrorism with new legislation targeting radicals inciting followers to violence.

The proposed new powers - aimed at heading off home-grown terrorism - will be joined by new efforts to attack extremism at its roots.

They will place greater emphasis and responsibility on religious groups and communities to identify people at risk of falling under the influence of violent extremists.

New legislation will also be joined by a "lexicon of terrorism" now being drawn up to deter the use of words potentially glorifying terrorism, or suggesting a clash between cultures or religions.

The use of the term "war on terrorism" is already in the lexicon's sights.

"We need to adopt language that depicts acts of politically motivated violence as base criminal conduct of the most reprehensible kind," federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland said.

"We must also be conscious of not alienating broad ethnic and religious groups by labelling them in a way that causes prejudice or leads to misunderstanding."

The proposals, to be released within weeks for discussion, follow growing concern at the influence of radical Islamic clerics among young Muslims, the prosecution of terror cells in Sydney and Melbourne, and last week's Jakarta bombings.

They also follow the introduction of some of the West's toughest anti-terror laws since the September 9, 2001, attacks on the United States, giving sweeping powers to counter-terror and law agencies.

The proposals were outlined by McClelland in a speech to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, in which he said Australia continued to be threatened by attack from foreign or home-grown terrorists.

He said successful prosecutions in Melbourne and Sydney clearly showed that, while a small minority, violent extremists were active within Australia. Countering them was one of the Government's top priorities, using security agencies and broader strategies to enhance social cohesion and resilience, and lessen the appeal of radical ideology.

Federal, state and territory agencies were now working on a national approach tailored to local communities in a bid to name and disrupt violent extremists and to identify people at risk of falling under their thrall.

Federal and state police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation were already working with influential community and religious leaders, and community organisations.

McClelland said this would be boosted by the release for consultation and discussion of a significant package of reforms to security and counter-terrorism laws.

These would include a new offence of inciting violence against an individual on the basis of race, religion or nationality, bolstering the existing crime of inciting violence against a group.

"Notably, this would expand the opportunity for prosecuting those who attempt to induce others, including vulnerable youths, to commit acts of politically motivated violence," McClelland said.

He said the support of families, communities and moderate religious leaders was crucial, as in many cases community members were often more able to recognise extremist behaviour and could be more effective in combating those views before they took hold.

"I see centres for Islamic studies at tertiary institutions as having a particular responsibility in this area," McClelland said.

[mr anderson]

Terror suspects 'sought holy approval'

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25879579-421,00.html

A GROUP of men suspected of planning a terror plot to kill soldiers at a Sydney army base sought approval from an Islamic religious figure for the plan, a court has heard.

The first man charged over the conspiracy, Nayef El Sayed, has appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on a terrorism offence. El Sayed, 25, is charged with conspiring with four men and other unknown people to do acts in preparation for an armed attack on the Australian army base at Holsworthy, in Sydney's west.

He is one of four men arrested following raids on Melbourne homes this morning. El Sayed sat in the dock between two security officers behind glass and refused to stand when asked by magistrate Peter Reardon.

"He would decline to stand on religious grounds," his lawyer Anthony Brand said, adding his client would not stand for anyone but God.

El Sayed did not apply for bail and was remanded in custody to reappear in court in late October. Prosecutor Nick Robinson SC alleged the men planned to storm the Holsworthy Army  Barracks and shoot army personnel or others until they were killed or captured.

He agreed with a suggestion by Mr Reardon that the men intended to become self-proclaimed "martyrs".

The court heard intercepted phone calls between the men revealed discussions about attempts to find an Islamic religious figure who would support engagement in a violent attack in Australia. AFP agent Niranjan Jirasinha said the conversations took place between people in Australia and overseas.

Mr Jirasinha said police wanted to question one of the suspects, Abdirahman Ahmed, about discussions he had had.

"We believe that he was seeking a fatwa and that would have assisted the group in preparing to commit an act," he said.

"There were several seeking it but he was one of the several."

Mr Jirasinha said the cleric or sheik to perform the fatwa, or religious ruling, was sought from interstate or overseas.

Australian Federal Police agent David Kinton earlier told the court another suspect, Saney Edow Aweyz, was overheard in recorded phone conversations talking with men involved in the conflict in Somalia and raised the possibility of sending other men there to become involved.

He said he was also heard having discussions about engaging in violent activity in Australia. Aweyz told the court he had no connection with the men being spoken about. Mr Kinton said text messages seized by police involving other people discussed the address of a military base in Sydney and the name of a train station.

The court was told police had a large amount of evidence, including recorded phone conversations, text messages and other surveillance. It also heard allegations one of the men trained at a camp in Somalia where weapons and military training took place.

Three of the suspects - Aweyz, Abdiramhman Ahmed and Yacqub Khayre  - appeared in court today but have not been charged.

Prosecutor Nick Robinson SC successfully applied to allow police to question them for an extra eight hours. A fourth suspect is already in custody on other matters. Magistrate Peter Reardon granted the applications.

In doing so, he said acts of terrorism struck at the heart of democratic societies and investigators should be allowed to fully investigate such serious allegations.

If any of the suspects are charged overnight, they will be brought before the court at 11am (AEST) tomorrow.

[EvadingGrid]

Australia is preparing to expand its arsenal of laws against terrorism with new legislation targeting radicals inciting followers to violence.

The proposed new powers - aimed at heading off home-grown terrorism - will be joined by new efforts to attack extremism at its roots.

They will place greater emphasis and responsibility on religious groups and communities to identify people at risk of falling under the influence of violent extremists.

So in other words, this whole "Raid" is timed to perfection to coincide with proposed legislation, to ensure a smooth passage through the Ozzie Parliament with no "pesky civil rights lawyers" interference . . .

They also follow the introduction of some of the West's toughest anti-terror laws since the September 9, 2001, attacks on the United States, giving sweeping powers to counter-terror and law agencies.

It also sounds like a particularly nasty bit of Orwellian Legislation

Am I reading this right ?

(Its hard to read upside down from over here)

[Brocke]

Some how I do not think that a Raid on REAL Terrorists would be covered by a gentlemans agreement called a Press Embargo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_embargo

In Australia we have a little know thing called a "D-Notice" or Defence Notice. All the Government has to do to gag the Media is issue one of these.

A voluntary system of D-Notices was also used in Australia starting in 1952 during the Cold War period and were issued by the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee. At the first meeting of the Committee, eight D-Notices were issued covering atomic tests in Australia, aspects of naval shipbuilding, official ciphering, the number and deployment of Centurion tanks, troop movements in the Korean War, weapons and equipment information not officially released, aspects of air defence and certain aerial photographs.[2]

In 1974 the number of D-Notices was reduced to four, covering:[2]

   1. Technical information regarding navy, army and air force weapons, weapons systems, equipment and communications systems;
   2. Air operational capability and air defences;
   3. Whereabouts of Mr and Mrs Vladimir Petrov; and
   4. Ciphering and monitoring activities.

A fifth D-Notice relating to the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) was issued in 1977.[2]

In 1982 D-Notices were again revised to four.[3]

    * D Notice 1: Capabilities of the Australian Defence Force, Including Aircraft, Ships, Weapons, and Other Equipment;
    * D Notice 2: Whereabouts of Mr and Mrs Vladimir Petrov;
    * D Notice 3: Signals Intelligence and Communications Security; and
    * D Notice 4: Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS).

The Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee has not met since 1982 although the D-Notice system remains the administrative responsibility of the Minister for Defence.[2]

The D-Notice system fell out of common use at the end of the Cold War but remained in force. The 1995 Commission of Inquiry into the Australian Secret Intelligence Service reported that newspapers confessed ignorance that the D-Notice system was still operating when it was drawn to their attention in 1993 and 1994.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DA-Notice

[EvadingGrid]

In Australia we have a little know thing called a "D-Notice" or Defence Notice. All the Government has to do to gag the Media is issue one of these.

Ah . . . . yes, sorry about that, you inherited that from us Poms.

Still could be worse, you could be drinking warm beer.  

[mr anderson]

Predictive programming? Getting the Australian / western public familiar with Somalian terrorists again for African troop presence?

Western concern grows over Somali war fallout

By William Maclean, Security Correspondent -Analysis
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSTRE5733FS20090804?sp=true

LONDON (Reuters) - Australia's arrest of four suspected attack plotters said to have links to a Somali group may suggest radicalized veterans of war in the Horn of Africa are willing to return to the diaspora to strike Western targets.

The four, all Australian citizens with Somali and Lebanese backgrounds, were arrested in dawn raids on 19 properties across Melbourne, after a seven-month investigation involving several forces and Australia's national security agency ASIO.

The group in question is al Shabaab, which is conducting an international recruitment campaign backed by al Qaeda's propaganda network for fighters to join its push to take power in Mogadishu and impose strict Islamic rule.

Although al Shabaab plays up its link to the transnational network of Osama bin laden, attacking Western targets overseas is not its primary goal, which is overwhelmingly domestic.

But one consequence of its use of ethnic Somalis from the millions-strong diaspora community may be that veterans head home with the funds or skills to attack Western targets of their own volition, Western counter-terrorism officials say.

"The chances are extremely remote that this was Shabaab saying 'Go off and strike Australia'," said Will Hartley, Editor of Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center, a security consultancy and information provider.

"NOT MERELY RESISTANCE FIGHTERS"

"Far more likely is that Australia was targeted by Australians who had been in Somalia, were radicalized, and were intent on carrying out or expanding the jihad themselves ... not under Shabaab orders," he said.

The arrests coincide with a surge in Western concern about radicalization of some Western converts to Islam. On July 29 U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder warned of increased "radicalization" of Americans going abroad and then returning home with the "aim of doing harm to the American people."

He was speaking two days after seven people were arrested in North Carolina for allegedly plotting attacks overseas. Holder also expressed concerns about a group of young Somali men leaving the Minneapolis area to join al Shabaab.

Acting Australian Federal Police Commissioner Tony Negus said those arrested on Tuesday had planned to storm a suburban Sydney army base with automatic weapons and kill those inside.

Prosecutors told the Melbourne Magistrate's Court they had evidence some of the men had taken part in training in Somalia and at least one had engaged in frontline fighting in Somalia.

Western officials worry that today's chaotic Somalia resembles Afghanistan in the 1990s, when militants including bin Laden's associates used the safe haven of ungoverned areas on the Pakistan border to plan attacks on Western targets.

In a speech posted on militant web forums on July 30, an al Qaeda leader, Abu Yahya al-Libi, appeared to urge Somali supporters of Shabaab to widen their list of targets beyond the nationalist agenda of ending foreign occupation - a reference to African Union peacekeepers in Somalia.

"You and we are mujahideen in the Cause of Allah, fighters against the enemies of Allah. We are not merely resistance fighters who push out enemies who came to our lands," he said, according to a translation by the Site Intelligence Group. He added: "We fight to drive out the foreign occupation from our lands ... and to eliminate every regime or law that disagrees with our faith, and so that Islam alone rules our lands and so that all mankind are servants of Allah alone."

Rashid Abdi, a Somalia expert at the International Crisis Group, said al Qaeda's internationalist rhetoric in support of al Shabaab on militant chatrooms and Web sites had helped widen the group's appeal among radical communities around the world.

And al Shabaab's own propaganda has drawn parallels between itself and the Taliban in Afghanistan and insurgencies in Algeria and Chechnya, in an apparent attempt to attract hardcore militants elsewhere in the world to join its fight.

AL QAEDA ORBIT

But domestic Somali politics was also a driver in al Shabaab's "moving into the al Qaeda orbit," Abdi said.

Al Shabaab, which holds swathes of south and central Somalia, has been enraged by Western and African backing for a new government formed this year and feels it would already have defeated the administration if it had not been for this support.

The United States has offered military support to Somalia's government, including more than 40 tons of weapons and ammunition, to help it fight insurgents, a senior U.S. official has said. It has also offered training for security forces.

Shabaab's radicalization "is a function of what is going on militarily and politically on the ground," Abdi said.

"They feel besieged, they feel that their victory has been snatched from them largely because of Western interference... You can see why the west is now more of a target for al Shabaab."

(Editing by Janet McBride)

[mr anderson]

Australians face up to home-grown Islamist threat

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article6738382.ece

Australians are struggling today to take in the news that a major terrorist attack was being planned in their country

As one man appeared in a Melbourne court charged with plotting a suicide attack on army bases and more charges were expected, a people more used to attacks by sharks than jihadists are having to face the fact that radical Islam is alive and growing on home soil.

Today's raids are not the first time a terror plot has been uncovered by Australian police. In February, Abdul Nacer Benbrika, a fanatical cleric who wanted to wage jihad by launching “terrible acts of violence”, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after becoming the first person in Australia to be convicted of leading a terrorist organisation.

But it is the first time a plot of such proportions has been uncovered. If the four young Australian men of Lebanese and Somali origin had been able to carry out their threat, it would have been the worst attack on Australian soil.

Analysts say the arrests today should provide a wake-up call to a country that has grown complacent about the possible threat from home-grown radicals.

There may be only 300,000 Muslims living in Australia, but there is a small and growing minority of Islamic extremists whose message of jihad has spread among disaffected youth.

Just as young Asian men in the UK have proven vulnerable to extremist messages from the mosque, radical imams such as Benbrika have succeeded in drawing into their web young Lebanese and Somali men, some of them refugees, who feel alienated from the wider Australian community.

Prisons, universities and the internet have also been useful recruiting grounds.

Last year the federal Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, warned that a terrorist threat was just as likely to emanate from disgruntled and alienated Australian youth as from an overseas organisation.

The most recent report by the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation also outlined the threat from "a small but potentially dangerous minority of Australians who hold extremist views and are prepared to act in support of their beliefs".

The police and security forces have been slow to develop a strategy to counter the growing problem of radicalisation.

A speech by Mr McClelland two weeks ago underlining the need for the Government to focus on the risk from home-grown extremists was the first by a minister on the subject since the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001.

Anthony Bergin, director of research at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, criticised the Government's complacency.

"This plot underlines the need for a comprehensive counter-radicalisation strategy," he told The Times. "We have had groups of people who are drawn to the extremist message, but we have had no strategy in place to counter it.

"It is difficult to know how much radicalisation has grown because we simply don't know what is going on in Muslim neighbourhoods in those at-risk groups," he said. "If these men had been successful in their attack, it would have led to substantial loss of life.

"This plot will provide a wake-up call that we can't be complacent about these issues."

[EvadingGrid]

Prisons, universities and the internet have also been useful recruiting grounds.

So the draconian internet censorship has failed and they will now repeal the communist firewall around Oz ?
 

[bs]

"The United States has offered military support to Somalia's government, including more than 40 tons of weapons and ammunition, to help it fight insurgents, a senior U.S. official has said. It has also offered training for security forces."


ORLY?

[mr anderson]

Out of Africa, into the dock

Milanda Rout and Chip Le Grand | August 05, 2009
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25884514-601,00.html

THE court was told Yacqub Khayre was 21, though he didn't look that old. Sitting between two police, he was a jumble of elbows in a black, cotton hoodie, an impassive, smooth face with little use for a razor.

Yet police believe that, for three months this year, Mr Khayre lived in a very adult world. It was Mr Khayre, according to police, who had gone to the dust of Somalia and attended a camp where "weapons and military training may have happened".

It was Mr Khayre, one of five children raised by a single mum in Melbourne, who was said to have sought a fatwa to give jihadist sanction to attacks being planned on the Holsworthy army base in southwestern Sydney and on another military installation in Victoria.

And though the court did not hear this in the scant evidence presented, it was Mr Khayre's return to Australia last month that coincided with the massive, joint police operation, which executed search warrants throughout Melbourne's north early yesterday, shifting into its final phase.

When police in riot gear and armed with assault rifles approached Mr Khayre's family home at 4.30am, they found a suburban street still wrapped in sleep and a brick-veneer house barely distinguishable from its neighbours.

As the sun rose, disbelief grew that such a house in such a suburb could be at the centre of what acting Australian Federal Police chief Tony Negus described as potentially, "the most serious terrorist attack on Australian soil".

A flat suburban expanse. A satellite TV dish on the roof. A garish yellow forensic tent erected in the drive. Whether terrorist or not, it was very much home grown.

When The Australian arrived in the street, young children were being loaded into a car to be driven away.

One of Mr Khayre's sibling is just nine years old. His lawyer asked for the family's name to be suppressed from publication to guard against "violent reactions and retributions". It was an impassioned submission but on this point, magistrate Peter Reardon was unmoved.

Elsewhere around Melbourne, a further 18 search warrants were executed. They came before Mr Reardon, one at a time.

Saney Edow Aweys, a boilermaker by trade, shrugged the offer of legal representation and quietly told the court he was too tired to answer any more questions.

He had worked 20 hours straight the day before police came knocking and had spent the morning in a small interrogation room with a bright light in his eyes.

Abdirahman Ahmed said to have sought a fatwa for the brazen terrorist plot outlined by police, complained he was tired as well.

Like Mr Khayre and Mr Aweys, Mr Ahmed had not been charged when he appeared before Mr Reardon yesterday afternoon. The magistrate ordered they be given a few hours to sleep before questioning continued.

The only alleged member of the conspiracy to be charged at the time of publication yesterday was Nayef El Sayed, who was arrested at his Glenroy home, also in Melbourne's north.

The only suspect who failed to appear was Wissam Mahmoud Fattal, who is in jail awaiting trial for an unrelated alleged assault. According to police, it was Mr Fattal's behaviour at a Melbourne mosque, amid last summer's heatwave, that first piqued their interest Mr Fattal led investigators to a Somali facilitator able to take young men to the Horn of Africa and introduce them to hardened jihadists. It is understood two of the group travelled to Somalia. Mr Kharyre came back.

Police said the investigation would continue, as would the questioning, well into the night. Whatever the outcome, none of these young men will be unremarkable again.

[mr anderson]

ASIO probes counter-terrorism leak
(Australian Security Intelligence Org)

Christine Kellett
August 5, 2009 - 1:13PM

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/asio-probes-counterterrorism-leak-20090805-e9h7.html

ASIO is among four separate law enforcement agencies across three states now investigating the leaking of information about a counter-terrorism operation to a national newspaper.

The Australian Federal Police says it immediately contacted its Professional Standards department after learning a journalist form the The Australian had obtained "sensitive information" about the planned raids.

In a statement released this afternoon, the AFP said a journalist from the newspaper had contacted the organisation on July 30 about a joint counter-terrorism investigation, dubbed Operation Neath, five days before the arrest of five Melbourne men on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack.

Four have since been charged.

"After consultation with the agencies involved in the investigation, the AFP requested The Australian newspaper delay the publication of the story until the investigation was ready to be resolve," the AFP said today.

"The AFP immediately referred the breach of operational security to its Professional Standards area and an investigation was commenced on Friday the 31st of July, 2009.

"Since that time the AFP has communicated with the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI), the Victoria Police Ethical Standards Unit, ASIO and the NSW Police to ensure a coordinated investigation of the security breach takes place."

This morning, the former head of the National Crime Authority, Peter Faris QC, said the leaking of Operation Neath intelligence to the media was a very serious matter warranting a top-level investigation.

"Make no mistake about it, this is a major national security breach," he told ABC Radio.

"We shouldn't be messing around with it."

Victorian Police Commissioner Simon Overland was among the critics today, vowing to get to the source of the leak.

"It has potentially compromised the investigation," Mr Overland told reporters in Melbourne earlier.

Parallels have also been drawn with the AFP's handling of the 2007 Mohamed Haneef affair, where law enforcement agencies and the Gold Coast doctor's lawyers engaged in a series of tit-for-tat leaks amid intense public scrutiny.

Dr Haneef's former barrister, Brisbane silk Stephen Keim SC, said it appeared the AFP had "rushed" to take credit and win public support for the swoop.

Dr. Haneef should never have been charged: report - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjCAHjO2OC0

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/23/2453411.htm
A new report has found that Doctor Mohammed Haneef should never have been charged with terrorism offences.

Australian Federal Police & the two Diaries - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6QRsKo-rD4

Five men were arrested during raids by 400 state and federal police on 19 separate properties in Melbourne early yesterday after investigators allegedly received information about a planned terrorist attack on the Holsworthy army base in Sydney.

The AFP said the investigation into the newspaper leak was important to protect its officers.

"The AFP places the highest importance on its operational security and the safety of its members and acted immediately to investigate the breach," it said in the statement.

"As the matter is currently under investigation, it would not be appropriate to make any further comment at this time."

The story's author, The Australian reporter Cameron Stewart has said he cooperated with the AFP in not publishing the story until the morning of the raids, the ABC has reported.

[mr anderson]

Terror leak 'smacks of Haneef'

Christine Kellett
August 5, 2009 - 10:12AM

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/terror-leak-smacks-of-haneef-20090805-e92q.html?page=-1

The Brisbane barrister who represented cleared terrorism suspect Mohamed Haneef says the leaking of police intelligence ahead of the country's biggest single anti-terrorism swoop yesterday smacks of the Australian Federal Police acting under the influence of outgoing commissioner Mick Keelty.

Four men have been charged and a fifth is being held in custody following a series of coordinated raids in Melbourne, involving 400 federal and state police executing 19 separate search warrants.

The AFP alleges Nayef El Sayed, 24, conspired with four other Islamist radicals to launch a terrorist attack on Sydney's Holsworthy army base using automatic weapons.

They were arrested after intelligence gathering by the AFP, including the alleged intercept of telephone calls.

Barrister Stephen Keim SC this morning said he was concerned by similarities between yesterday's arrests and the Haneef case, which made headlines around the world when the first real test of Australia's anti-terrorism laws failed in spectacular fashion.

Mr Keim said the AFP's decision to hold one of the five men without charge could raise doubts about the strength of the police case against him.

He also questioned a decision to leak information about the alleged terrorism plot to The Australian newspaper before the arrests had been made.

"It was always the intention that this legislation (allowing police to hold terrorism suspects without charge) would be used for no more that 24 hours," Mr Keim told brisbanetimes.com.au.

"For an operation said to be based on intelligence gathered over a period of time and (extensive) enough to brief a journalist, it would seem to me quite self-indulgent on the part of police to hold someone for much longer without charge.

"It is reaching that critical point now for police to act."

Dr Haneef's 12-day detention on suspicion of financing the Glasgow Airport bombings in 2007 became the longest without charge in Australia's history and shone the spotlight on the AFP's use of the Australian Anti-Terrorism Act.

The former Gold Coast Hospital registrar was eventually charged with intentionally providing support to a terrorist organisation over a mobile phone SIM card he had given to his cousin and Glasgow bomber Sabeel Ahmed, but the charges were withdrawn by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions when the case against him collapsed.

Mr Keim was himself investigated by the Legal Services Commission for giving Dr Haneef's AFP interview transcript with to The Australian in 2007 in response to what he claimed were a series of selective leaks by the AFP to damage his client's reputation.

Mr Keim said yesterday's leak, which may now be the subject of a top-level investigation, appeared to be a case of the AFP "rushing" to claim early credit and win public support for the swoop.

"There certainly are parallels with the way this has come out.

"With Haneef, the AFP went ahead and cleared themselves in the media and then reported a whole lot of Queensland public servants to the Crime and Misconduct Commission (for alleged leaks)

"I think there are also parallels in terms of the risk to a fair trial. The public have a demand to know and a right to know about matters such as this but the way in which all of that's handled is very important in consideration of the court process.

"In the report I saw yesterday (in The Australian) there was very little use of the word 'alleged' at any stage."

He said the influence of Commissioner Keelty, who faced a barrage of criticism over his handling of the Haneef matter before his resignation in May, was still apparent and a cultural change within the AFP was needed.

"It's important to remember that Mick Keelty hasn't gone yet; he doesn't actually finish up until September.

"There's always been cultural problems within the AFP ... that's the challenge for the Commonwealth Attorney-General in replacing him. He has to be very careful about the way in which he appoints the next commissioner."

Concerns have also been raised following reports one of the Melbourne suspects had been kept awake for 30 hours during questioning.

Mr Keim said such practices would seriously compromise any case the AFP managed to build against the men.

"For a start, that's simply in breach of the legislation," he said.

The Australian has defended its decision to publish the story, saying it cooperated with the AFP to ensure the investigation was not compromised.

But this morning, the former head of the National Crime Authority, Peter Faris QC, said the leak should be fully investigated.

"Make no mistake about it, this is a major national security breach," he told ABC Radio.

"We shouldn't be messing around with it."

[mr anderson]

Newspaper terrorism leak 'risked lives'

By Emily Bourke
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/05/2647107.htm

The Victorian Police Chief says a report in the Australian newspaper about yesterday's counter-terrorism operation threatened the operation and the safety of officers. Commissioner Simon Overland says he is determined to find the source of the leak and warned the paper's source could be jailed for unlawfully releasing information.

The raids on Tuesday morning, carried out by Australian Federal Police and Victoria Police, led to the arrests of five men over an alleged plot to attack military barracks. Details of Operation Neath were splashed across the front page of the Australian newspaper, which has repeatedly said the story was not publicly available for sale until after the raids.

The newspaper's editor has flatly rejected claims that its decision to print the story jeopardised the operation or police. Victoria's Office of Police Integrity is investigating, but a day and a half after the raids Commissioner Overland is still fuming over the early morning publication of the counter-terrorism operation.

"The fact is a leak has occurred. It has to have come from a law enforcement official and I'm determined to get to the bottom of it," he said.

I heard on the news that there's a rift between Victorian State Police & Australian Federal Police so it's yet to be determined where it came from.

Commissioner Overland says those responsible for the media leak could face criminal charges.

"Certainly from our point of view, the offence of unlawfully releasing information carries a jail term," he said.

And Commissioner Overland is standing by his claim that the Australian newspaper was available well before the raids were carried out.

"I have a law enforcement officer who bought the paper at 1.30am yesterday morning," he said.

"I have advice that the paper was delivered to the AFP headquarters at 2:00 yesterday morning. I have confirmed that the operation centre had the paper at 3:00 yesterday morning and I understand a newsagent has contacted a commercial radio station today to say he had the paper at 1.30am.

"Now, the other point I want to make and this is very important, the paper is printed here in Melbourne. It's then been distributed.

"We've had truck drivers involved in moving the paper around the city. It's then been obviously put at various locations around the city.

"I don't know who's involved in printing the paper. I don't know who's involved in the transportation of the paper. I've got no idea who had access to that information from about 1:30am yesterday morning."

'Real concern'

Commissioner Overland says the report posed an unacceptable risk to his officers.

"That is of real concern to me. That was a real and present risk to the lives of my offices involved in a very sensitive investigation and risky search warrants yesterday morning," he said.

"It was a risk to all other law enforcement officers involved in those operations."

But the journalist who broke the story, Cameron Stewart, says he had been sitting on it since last Thursday at the AFP's request.

On Monday night he says he got the okay from the AFP to publish the next day.

"The AFP is fine with this - they don't have the same level of gripes that Simon Overland has," he said.

The Australian newspaper has issued a statement to the ABC, saying the newspaper honoured an agreement it had with the AFP.

"At no time was anyone from the Australian told of the exact timing of the raids conducted in Melbourne early on Tuesday morning," the statement said.

"The Australian agreed to withhold publication of the raids until the latest editions of the newspaper and to keep all references off our internet site. The Australian honoured that agreement absolutely and the AFP acknowledges that.

"The Australian made the decision not to publish at the request of the AFP, after we were convinced that to do so could endanger the operation.

"We subsequently agreed to publish on the day in question only after we were assured by the AFP that it was appropriate to do so."

Nevertheless the AFP says the leak has been under investigation since last Friday.

ASIO, the NSW Police, Victorian Police Ethical Standards and Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity are all involved in a coordinated inquiry.

[mr anderson]

Terror suspect in court outburst

August 5, 2009
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iFmHFNS53N_YhAy10nn4Aa-w4gWw

One of four men charged accused of plotting a suicide attack on an Australian military base has angrily denied he was a terrorist and accused the country's troops of killing innocent people overseas.

Wissam Mahmoud Fattal, who police say is a member of an extremist cell with ties to an al Qaida-linked group in Somalia, refused to stand up at Melbourne Magistrates Court, where he was charged with conspiring to plan a terrorist attack.

He did not enter a plea and faces life in prison if convicted.

As Fattal was being led from the court, he accused Australia of killing innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq and said, "You call us terrorists - I've never killed anyone in my life."

Fattal's lawyer, Grace Morgan, said her client did not mean disrespect to the magistrate by not standing, but he would stand only for his god.

Police had arrested four men - all Australian citizens aged between 22 and 26 with Somali and Lebanese origins - in raids on 19 houses in Melbourne, the culmination of a seven-month intelligence operation.

Fattal, Nayef El Sayed and two other men were charged with conspiring to plan a terrorist attack.

Police say the cell's plan was to send a team of gunmen with automatic rifles on a suicide attack against Holsworthy Barracks, an army base on the outskirts of Sydney, and launch a fight to the death with troops.

The base houses commandos trained in counter-terrorism, a Black Hawk helicopter squadron and thousands of regular troops. The men planned to keep on shooting until they themselves were killed, acting Australian Federal Police chief Tony Negus told reporters.

Magistrate Peter Reardon remanded Fattal and Sayed in custody and reappear in court on October 26.

Copyright © 2009 The Press Association. All rights reserved.

[mr anderson]

The Australian newspaper 'disturbed' by terror raid criticism

Paul Whittaker, Editor | August 05, 2009
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25887710-7582,00.html

THE Australian has been disturbed by the extent of misinformation being disseminated about our decision to publish news of the alleged Melbourne terrorist cell.

At no time was anyone from The Australian told of the exact timing of the raids conducted in Melbourne early on Tuesday morning.

OVERLAND: Officers were safe in raids
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25886467-7582,00.html

Under a deal struck with the lead agency in the investigation – the Australian Federal Police – The Australian agreed to sit on the story and not publish a single word about the imminent raids, despite knowing of them a week earlier, until the morning they were to be carried out.

The AFP was absolutely aware of the logistical intricacies of the national distribution of our newspaper, and The Australian agreed to withhold publication of the raids until the latest editions of the newspaper, and to keep all references off our internet site.

The Australian honoured that agreement absolutely, and the AFP acknowledges that.

The Australian was informed by the AFP that it had consulted all relevant law-enforcement agencies, including Victoria Police, of the arrangement struck last week after the AFP became aware we had the story. At no time over the ensuing days did Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland – or anyone else from Victoria Police – contact The Australian to ask us not to publish on the day of the planned raids.

On the contrary, the Acting Commissioner of the AFP, Tony Negus, had thanked The Australian for holding off publication until the agreed day, and according to the agreement, the AFP contacted The Australian on the eve of the raids to give us the go ahead to publish the next morning in our latest editions. This is exactly what we did. If the AFP had asked us to wait six months, we would have. We acted entirely on their timeframe.

AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty also contacted The Australian’s editor-in-chief, Chris Mitchell, from London last night to say he was happy with the way the newspaper had handled the story.

Clearly, Cameron Stewart became aware of details of the terror investigation in the previous week, and The Australian understands that this is of concern to Mr Overland and his colleagues within the operation. However, it is completely disingenuous of Mr Overland to state that The Australian acted irresponsibly when he and his colleagues were aware The Australian honoured its end of the bargain with the AFP.

To reiterate, The Australian made the decision not to publish at the request of the AFP after we were convinced that to do so could endanger the operation. We subsequently agreed to publish on the day in question only after we were assured by the AFP that it was appropriate to do so.

It is more than apparent that Mr Overland’s remarks about The Australian are influenced by a historic animosity with The Australian for our longstanding push for a royal commission into police and official corruption in Victoria, as well as a high degree of inter-agency rivalry between the AFP and Victoria Police. This was evident when Mr Overland, moments after criticising The Australian on Tuesday morning, expressed his frustration that The Australian had not given the Victorian police enough credit for its role in the investigation.

[bs]

Then how come truckies picked up the paper at 3.30 am fromTullamarine with their coffee on changeover?
This is getting crazy,news before it's news yet again!

[mr anderson]

Reporters arrested inside army base

August 5, 2009
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/05/2647236.htm

Two Sydney journalists have been arrested inside the army base that was the alleged target of a terrorism plot - http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=122809.0

Five men were arrested in Melbourne on Tuesday and charged with plotting to attack the Holsworthy base.

On Wednesday afternoon, army personnel caught two journalists from the Daily Telegraph newspaper who had allegedly broken into the Holsworthy military reserve.

Police say the army detained the men until police arrived and a laptop and a camera were seized.

The men, aged 26 and 38, have been granted bail to face court next month, charged with taking photos of a fortification.

[mr anderson]

Then how come truckies picked up the paper at 3.30 am fromTullamarine with their coffee on changeover?
This is getting crazy,news before it's news yet again!

I'm not following you..

And Commissioner Overland is standing by his claim that the Australian newspaper was available well before the raids were carried out.

"I have a law enforcement officer who bought the paper at 1.30am yesterday morning," he said.

"I have advice that the paper was delivered to the AFP headquarters at 2:00 yesterday morning. I have confirmed that the operation centre had the paper at 3:00 yesterday morning and I understand a newsagent has contacted a commercial radio station today to say he had the paper at 1.30am.

[akston]

Notice how similar the script for this event is to the Fort Dix provocateured terror attack...

http://statismwatch.ca/2008/12/23/five-muslims-face-life-for-fort-dix-terror-plot-orchestrated-by-fbi/

Notice how similar the script for the Canadian 'Toronto 18 muslim terror threat' case was to this other Australian case...

http://statismwatch.ca/2008/04/17/australian-terror-plot-case-bears-remarkable-similarities-to-toronto-18/

What, is there a how-to guide to provocateur these operations they just photocopy and hand around? I'm sick of hearing about these cases now, it's always the same.

[mr anderson]

Terrorism raids 'brought forward after leak'

August 5, 2009
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/05/2646293.htm

The head of counter-terrorism with the New South Wales Police has revealed that yesterday's counter-terrorism raids in Melbourne were brought forward because The Australian newspaper had the story.

Five men have been accused of planning an armed attack on the Holsworthy Army barracks in Sydney. Four of the suspects were arrested during dawn raids at 19 properties across Melbourne, involving hundreds of police. Yesterday authorities criticised The Australian, saying it had published details of the raids before some of the arrests had taken place.

The newspaper denied this, saying the story only ran in its late edition - which was not available until after the raids. Victorian police then revealed that negotiations had been taking place with the newspaper over the last week. Police said that the editor agreed to hold-off on the story until yesterday, when the raids were set to take place.

But speaking on ABC local radio this morning, the New South Wales assistant police Commissioner, Peter Dein, said the operation was expedited because the Australian had the story.

"Yes it was pulled forward because of that and these things happen and we had no control over that," he said.

"I'm not sure exactly how long [The Australian] had it... I think it was a few days, but I was aware because of my involvement with the inter agency relationships.

"There was no set date...but certainly we needed to execute it yesterday because of certain knowledge of the media."

The AFP has released a statement saying a journalist from The Australian contacted them on July 30, claiming he had sensitive information about the joint counter-terrorism investigation.

"After consultation with the agencies involved in the investigation, the AFP requested The Australian newspaper delay the publication of the story until the investigation was ready to be resolved.

"The AFP immediately referred the breach of operational security to its Professional Standards area and an investigation was commenced on Friday the 31st of July 2009.

"Since that time the AFP has communicated with the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI), the Victoria Police Ethical Standards Unit, ASIO and the NSW Police to ensure a coordinated investigation of the security breach takes place."

[akston]

Remember this?
(Metropolitan )Police chief Bob Quick steps down over terror blunder
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/09/bob-quick-terror-raids-leak

Britain's most senior counterterrorism officer resigns over security leak that resulted in anti-terror operation being brought forward

We had no choice but to round up another group of muslim kids - there was a leak, our operations were jeopardized, oh no..

And here's the outcome of the British case - no evidence found other than these 11 were taking holiday snaps, but deportation proceedings were undertaken, presumably to shut them up.

[mr anderson]

Melbourne police foil terror plans - 7.30 report

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiWpuUAwcbA

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 04/08/2009
Reporter: Matt Peacock

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2009/s2646093.htm

Four Australian men were arrested today for planning what authorities believe could have been one of the worst major terrorist attacks in the nation’s history. The group, whose plot involved suicide shoot-outs on Australian army bases, are alleged to have ties with the militant Somali Islamist group, Al Shabaab.

Transcript

KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: Here is a story about the allegations of a home-grown terrorism plot after a series of dramatic dawn raids across Melbourne.

Federal and state police, with ASIO, say they've foiled a plan to launch a major suicide attack on Australian army bases, after a seven-month investigation dubbed 'Operation Neath'.

Four Australian citizens of Somali and Lebanese descent have been arrested and a fifth man, already in custody, is also being questioned.It's alleged the men have ties to the militant Somali Islamist group Al-Shabaab, an organisation some experts claim has links to Al Qaeda. Matt Peacock reports.

CARL UNGERER, AUST. STRATEGIC POLICY INSTITUTE: Australia remains a gold medal target for Al Qaeda.

BENJAMIN MACQUEEN, MONASH UNIVERSITY: It's something that's been going on for a while, and in a way, it's surprising that this hadn't happened previously.

KEVIN RUDD, PRIME MINISTER: The threat of terrorism is alive and well and this requires continued vigilance on the part of our security authority.

MATT PEACOCK, REPORTER: For seven months, state and federal police and intelligence agencies have mounted a massive surveillance operation. Today, they struck, launching pre-dawn raids on 10 houses to prevent what they allege was a plot to launch suicide attacks against Australian army bases.

In court, one man appeared this afternoon charged with conspiring to commit an act in preparation for or planning a terrorist act. Federal police were granted another eight hours to question the other men arrested about evidence gathered from their mobile phones and text messages.

TONY NEGUS, AFP ACTING COMMISSIONER: 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. Details of the planning indicated the alleged offenders were prepared to inflict a sustained attack on military personnel until they themselves were killed.

MATT PEACOCK: The alleged plot spans the globe, from Melbourne to Mogadishu, where the radical Islamic group Al-Shabaab has clawed back control of much of southern Somalia since the US-backed Ethiopian invasion three years ago.

BENJAMIN MACQUEEN: The Al-Shabaab movement found safe haven in Eretria, and has subsequently been receiving aid, logistical support from the Eritrean Government and has since pushed back into Somalia and now controls large sections of southern Somalia, central Somalis and also the capital.

MATT PEACOCK: Somalia's been a failed state for decades, with suicide bombings, piracy and abductions commonplace, including the kidnapping last year of Australian journalist Nigel Brennan. Al-Shabaab, which is Arabic for "young men", has some links to Al Qaeda, according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Carl Ungerer.

CARL UNGERER: Australia certainly is a different organisation from what it was a few years ago. It's not the same centralised organisation that we knew of it back in the 1990s. It's actually devolved many of these affiliate groups such as Al-Shabaab, who've been named as potential, you know, as organisers in this case. But they follow the broader Salafist ideology, but they will act independently of Al Qaeda’s sort of operational plans.

MATT PEACOCK: The Al Qaeda mastermind behind the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam is now believed by US intelligence to be working with Al-Shabaab. While Al-Shabaab has been prescribed as a terrorist organisation in the US, that's not the case in Australia.

PAUL JORDAN, HART SECURITY AUSTRALIA: We know that Al-Shabaab have recruited young Somali, who are actually United States citizens, from America, sent them over to Somalia to fight in the wars over there. And it's not so that they can take part in any greater cause; it's so that they can learn how to fight and learn those skills that they may be able to use at a later date.

ABDU RAHMAN JAMA OSMAN, PRESIDENT OF THE SOMALI COMMUNITY, VICTORIA: Young Somalian men is vulnerable to be recruited by anyone - by any fundamentalists, because some people are coming through the religion, telling them to make a jihad. They are misinterpreting what the jihad mean.

MATT PEACOCK: Almost 5,000 Somalis have settled in Australia to escape the violence in their own country. According to Abdu Rahman Jama Osman, a spokesman for the Victorian community, today's news has shocked them.

ABDU RAHMAN JAMA OSMAN: My community is a peace community, is a good people, but what if one or two people (inaudible) for all of the people in this world. I'm telling the Australian community that we are Australians, we are abide by the law of Australia, we are getting help, we are giving help to the police by investigating this kind of thing.

MATT PEACOCK: That's a message that was echoed today by Victoria's Police Commissioner Simon Overland.

SIMON OVERLAND, VICTORIA POLICE COMMISSIONER: We understand that the overwhelming and vast majority of people of Islamic faith are not terrorists. They do not support terrorism, they have successfully integrated into our community, we work very collaboratively and very effectively with them and we will continue to do so.

MATT PEACOCK: Police allege that surveillance had already been conducted of Holsworthy Army Base in Western Sydney, home for some of Australia's Special Forces and a predictable target, according to SAS veteran and international security specialist Paul Jordan.

PAUL JORDAN: Perhaps, I guess, by having Australian men and women in the Defence Force, killed or injured, it may bring extra pressure to bear on the Australian Government to question why we are actually involved in these issues overseas.

MATT PEACOCK: Despite today's arrests, experts warn that an underlying threat remains.

CARL UNGERER: Australia has to understand that it a terrorist attack on home soil is a real possibility.

[mr anderson]

Al-Shabaab terrorist listing 'no surprise'

August 22, 2009
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/22/2663481.htm

A security expert says the Federal Government has effectively isolated the Somali militant group al-Shabaab from Australians by listing it as a terrorist organisation.

The move came yesterday, just weeks after five Australian men with alleged links to the organisation were charged with planning to carry out a suicide attack on a military base in Sydney.

A spokesman for al-Shabaab has since denied any Australian connection.

The listing means it will be an offence to train with, become a member of, or direct funds to the organisation.

Clive Williams from the Australian National University says the listing came as no surprise.

"It'd been mentioned that the group hadn't been listed before because of the on-going investigation that led to the arrest in Melbourne, so I was expecting that it would happen relatively soon," he said.

"We know that al-Shabaab is providing training to foreigners, which of course is a concern to the Government."

Mr Williams says the Government is primarily concerned about al-Shabaab providing training to foreigners.

"They're facing a problem with second-generation immigrant Somalis going back to Somalia and getting training with al-Shabaab, either to fight with al-Shabaab, or their concern particularly is of those people coming back to their home countries and conducting terrorist attacks at home," he said.

The Government had been under pressure to list the group, which has been regarded as a terrorist organisation by the United States since February last year.

The US National Counter-Terrorism Centre website says al-Shabaab is the militant wing of the Somalia Islamic Courts Council that took over most of southern Somalia in late 2006.

[mr anderson]

Seeking permission to kill

Adrian Lowe | August 25, 2009
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/seeking-permission-to-kill-20090825-ews1.html

ONE of five Melbourne men charged with planning a suicide terrorist attack at a Sydney army base asked an Islamic sheikh how long it would be needed to ''take out'' up to 10 people, according to the Australian Federal Police. Police alleged that Saney Edow Aweys told the Somali sheikh that Middle East-based people wanted an ''operation here'' and they knew where they could get weapons, including guns and rifles.

The AFP referred to intercepts of an alleged telephone conversation in which Aweys sought permission from Sheikh Abdirahman for an attack on Holsworthy Army Base in Sydney.

''Their desire is to fan out as much as possible until they would be hit,'' Aweys allegedly told the sheikh in a conversation detailed by AFP agent Chris Salmon during a bail application in the Melbourne Magistrates Court.

According to translated transcripts provided to the court by police, the conversation went:

Aweys: ''Would 20 minutes be enough for us to take out five, six, 10, eight? Whatever Allah knows … 20-30 minutes 'til they use up their weapons. Is that permissible?''

Sheikh Abdirahman: ''Could there be disastrous repercussions?''

Aweys: ''Yes. It's Australia … As you might be aware, these guys' - we are present in their midst - forces are cast in the lands of Islam and causing great damage in the upper front.''

Sheikh Abdirahman: ''The issue is whether it is permissible or impermissible. It needs to be weighed up very carefully … there could be a mass exodus of Muslims (and) those left behind … carry out the activity.''

The court heard that another of the accused men, Yacqub Khayre, travelled to Somalia this year, where he was suspected of having undertaken military training with terrorist group al-Shabab, with a view to participating in Somali insurgency against that country's government.

The AFP said that, while he was in Somalia, Khayre successfully sought from a sheikh a fatwa - a religious order - authorising an attack in Australia.

During the trip, Khayre travelled to Kenya, where he said he had lost his Australian passport and was given a replacement, AFP agent Brendan Castles told the court. Mr Castles said police believed the passport was not lost, but instead was being held in Somalia by the leader of al-Shabab, which was last week listed by Canberra as a terrorist organisation.

The five men - Aweys, 26, of North Carlton, Khayre, 22, of Meadow Heights, Nayef El Sayed, 25, of Glenroy, Abdirahman Ahmed, 25, of Preston, Wissam Fattal, 33 - were charged earlier this month after police raids with one count each of conspiring to do acts in preparation for a terrorist act.

Aweys, Khayre and El Sayed are applying for bail. A similar application by Ahmed was withdrawn. The prosecution has opposed bail, citing an unacceptable risk to community safety, of interfering with witnesses and of fleeing Australia.

The prosecution alleges that Fattal, the group's ''central figure'', told Ahmed: ''This is the terrestrial life, Ahmed. We want the afterlife.''

He also allegedly told El Sayed: ''We are doing something very terrific for Allah. All I want to do is please Allah. That is my mission.''

The court heard Fattal was captured on security footage outside the Holsworthy base for about half an hour. Shortly afterwards he was arrested and extradited to Victoria on another matter.

El Sayed and two other men visited him while he was in custody, where he allegedly told them he would not be applying for bail. ''At the end there is the afterlife and all I want is Allah. That is my mission,'' police allege he said.

Aweys, in an intercepted conversation with his wife, allegedly told her he would go overseas for military training at year's end. ''There is a war between Muslims and infidels,'' he allegedly said.

Lawyers for the men signalled doubts that the prosecution brief of evidence would be delivered by the agreed date next month, given delays in having computers searched and obtaining expert witnesses from overseas.

The bail application before the magistrate, Peter Reardon, continues.

Source: The Age

[mr anderson]

'Monster attack' planned on base

Milanda Rout | August 25, 2009
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25977015-2702,00.html

MEMBERS of an alleged terrorist conspiracy group spoke about working together "on a great monstrous thing" and needing only 20 minutes to take out as many soldiers as possible as they planned an attack on a Sydney army base. Conversations recorded by federal police on secret telephone intercepts reveal two of the accused talked to sheiks in Somalia to try to get a fatwa -- religious blessing -- for their attack and described their plans to get guns and rifles for the terror plot.

Details of these discussions emerged yesterday at the Melbourne Magistrates Court as three of the accused, Saney Edow Aweys, Nayef El Sayed and Yacqub Khayre, applied for bail. Australian Federal Police counter-terrorism agent Chris Salmon read out a prosecution summary of the case to the court, which included transcripts of recorded conversations about being on a mission to "please Allah" and desires to "enter the paradise" of the after life.

"So they want an operational martyrdom," Sheik Abdirahman Ahmed, from Somalia, allegedly asks Mr Aweys on July 10.

"Yes," Mr Aweys replies. "They know where they can get them (the guns). Then they want to enter the military forces stationed in the barracks. Their desire is to fan out as much as possible ... until they would be hit. Twenty minutes would be enough for us to take out five, six, 10, eight, whatever Allah knows."

Sheik Abdirahman then asks: "Could there be disastrous consequences?" Mr Aweys says: "Yes, it's Australia and the city of Melbourne. As you may be aware ... we are present in their midst. The infidels, their forces are cast in the lands of Islam and causing great damage."

Another recorded conversation between the fourth accused, Wissam Mahmoud Fattal and Mr El Sayed, also talks about obtaining a fatwa for their planned attack on the Holsworthy army base in southwestern Sydney.

"I would like to strike big if its halal (approved)," Mr El Sayed allegedly says to Mr Fattal, who was in the Melbourne Remand Centre at the time after being charged with an unrelated assault. "Allah willing, we will strike good, and the rest will distribute it on the brothers."

Mr Fatal says all he wants is an afterlife. "We are doing something very terrific for Allah. We are working together on a great monstrous thing and we will need to persevere."

Mr Salmon told the court Mr Aweys was recruiting men to fight for Somali extremist group al-Shabaab against the country's government and he helped Mr Khayre travel to Somalia and train with the terror group.

"He (Mr Khayre) has acquired skills which are dangerous and could be used to avoid police," AFP agent Bruce Castle told the bail hearing.

The court also heard police believe Mr Khayre left his passport with an al-Shabaab leader in Somalia.

Mr Salmon said police were still obtaining evidence from the US, Britain and Kenya. He said several other people may have been involved in the plot. He confirmed police had not seized weapons at any of the 19 homes they raided on August 4, apart from a pair of nunchucks, which they later learned belonged to someone else.

Mr Khayre, Mr Fattal, Mr Sayed and Mr Aweys, along with Abdirahman Ahmed, have been charged with conspiring to prepare for a terrorist act. Mr Aweys and Mr Ahmed have also been charged with helping Walid Osman Mohamed go to Somalia and fight with al-Shabaab. Mr Aweys faces a third charge of preparing to go over to engage in conflict in Somalia.

The bail hearings, before magistrate Peter Reardon, continue.

[mr anderson]

Bail may boost terror attack risk: court

Melissa Jenkins | August 26, 2009
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/bail-may-boost-terror-attack-risk-court-20090826-eza3.html

The Melbourne men accused of plotting a suicide attack on a NSW army base could attempt another terrorist act in Australia if bailed, a court has heard. Prosecutors told the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Wednesday there was an unacceptable risk of the men attempting to commit further terrorism offences and fleeing the country if released on bail from the state's highest security jail.

Yeah because all surveillance would mysteriously be withdrawn from an alleged terrorist...  

Police had testified they were concerned one of the men, Nayef El Sayed, would commit a terrorist act if given bail, prosecutor Nicholas Robertson said. Mr Robertson said even a low risk of committing a terrorism offence was unacceptable.

"The terrorism legislation is designed to prevent, if possible, the carrying out of a catastrophic terrorist attack within our shores," he said.

"How does your honour balance the risk of such terrorist offences being committed against the granting of bail?"

Magistrate Peter Reardon expects to announce on Thursday whether he will bail three of the five men accused of planning a suicide attack on Sydney's Holsworthy army barracks. The prosecution alleges Yacqub Khayre, 22, of Meadow Heights, was tasked by El Sayed, 25, of Glenroy, to travel to Somalia to obtain a fatwa - or religious ruling - to authorise a terrorist attack in Australia.

He left on April 13 and, having obtained a fatwa, returned to Australia on July 14, the court has been told.

Khayre is alleged to have texted the location of the Holsworthy barracks to the "central figure" in the plot, 33-year-old Wissmam Mahmoud Fattal, who is accused of scoping out the facility. Another bail applicant - Saney Edow Aweys, 26, of Carlton North - was allegedly involved in recruiting people to fight in the insurgency in Somalia.

He is also facing charges relating to the provision of about $2,700 to Walid Osman Mohamed, whom police believe to be in Somalia at an armed conflict training camp.

El Sayed's lawyer, Julian McMahon, said there was no evidence his client had an ideological mindset.

"He's not there saying 'I hate America, I hate Australia, I'm going to blow up the world'," he said.

But Mr Reardon said the defendants were alleged to be driven by a political doctrine.

"These are politically motivated crimes against ... Western society which they think ... is inherently corrupt and anti-Muslim," he said.

"What faith could you have that conditions of bail would be complied with?"

Mr McMahon said no person charged with terrorism offences in Victoria released on bail had committed a further terrorism offence.

Aweys allegedly spoke to his wife about wanting to enter paradise, which was a reference to a violent Islamic jihad, Mr Robertson said as a woman in court began sobbing.

Khayre has failed to appear in court on two prior occasions and police believe his Australian passport is with an official from the Somali extremist organisation, Al-Shabaab, which has links to al-Qaeda and was listed as a terrorist organisation by the federal government on August 21.

© 2009 AAP

[mr anderson]

Police quizzed if agent spied on terror suspects

Adrian Lowe | August 26, 2009
http://www.theage.com.au/national/police-quizzed-if-agent-spied-on-terror-suspects-20090825-ey4v.html

THE Australian Federal Police has come under pressure to reveal whether a covert operative was planted in a group of five Melbourne men charged with terrorism offences. The charges relate to an alleged plot to attack the Holsworthy Army Base in NSW.

It was revealed yesterday that one of the men, Saney Aweys, had been recorded on telephone intercepts expressing his hatred for Australia and people who were not followers of Islam. Lawyers for the men described the prosecution case as weak.  

Under questioning from Aweys' lawyer, Rob Stary, on the second day of a bail application at Melbourne Magistrates Court, federal agent David Kinton said no civilian witnesses had made statements ''at this stage''.

But when Mr Stary asked if a covert operative had been planted, Mr Kinton hesitated, before replying: ''Can I seek legal advice?''

After an adjournment, Gerard Maguire, for Chief Commissioner Simon Overland, said his instructions could only be disclosed in a closed court. Mr Stary dropped the questioning, but said he would not relinquish the point. It is likely to be brought up again later.

He suggested that it was not an offence to travel to Somalia, to give money to a Somali or to support al-Shabab at the time of the surveillance, to which the agent agreed. ''I'm going to establish that the case against my client is a weak case because the [Crown] cannot prove [two counts] because of the complex nature of governance in Somalia,'' Mr Stary later told the court.

Mr Kinton said: ''A common theme is [Aweys'] hatred towards Australia and anyone who doesn't follow Islam. He has also indicated a willingness to lead violence against those people.''

The five men - Aweys, 26, of North Carlton, Yacqub Khayre, 22, of Meadow Heights, Nayef El Sayed, 25, of Glenroy, Abdirahman Ahmed, 25, of Preston, and Wissam Fattal, 33 - were arrested on August 4 after counter-terrorism raids across Melbourne. They have each been charged with one count of conspiring to do acts in preparation for a terrorist act.

Aweys has also been charged with one count of aiding, abetting counsel or procuring the commission of an offence by Walid Mohamed in Somalia and conducting preparations for incursions into … Somalia for the purpose of engaging in hostile activities.

Only Aweys, Khayre and El Sayed have applied for bail.

The Federal Government last week listed al-Shabab as a terrorist group.

Following a series of defiant refusals to stand in court, magistrate Peter Reardon, who has presided over the men's cases during three appearances, said yesterday that anyone who refused to stand when directed would be forced to leave court.

Fattal and El Sayed refused to stand when being addressed by Mr Reardon in their filing hearings, citing religious reasons, but El Sayed complied this week. Some supporters of the bail applicants have refused to stand when Mr Reardon entered or left the court.

Mr Reardon said he received a letter from NSW Sheikh Haron, who instructed him it was not Islamic custom to refuse to stand for non-Muslims. But the sheikh said Muslims were oppressed by terrorist governments like Australia's.

''It is a sin to stand up for for any person who relates to an oppressive government,'' the sheikh wrote.

There are doubts about Sheikh Haron's authenticity.

The bail application is expected to conclude today

[mr anderson]

Magistrate Peter Reardon sent terror case hate mail

Milanda Rout | August 26, 2009
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25982710-17044,00.html

A MELBOURNE magistrate prevailing over the cases of five men accused of planning a terrorist attack on the Holsworthy army base has received hate mail from a purported Sydney Muslim cleric, labelling him and the courts an oppressor of Islam. Peter Reardon yesterday read in open court parts of the letter sent to him by a person calling himself Sheik Haron and revealed he had also received emails from people quoting the Koran.

Why would you read hate mail in court? How is it permissible?

The hate mail came after Mr Reardon expressed frustration when two of the accused men refused to stand up for him during a court hearing earlier this month, saying their religion prohibited them standing for anyone but God. Supporters of three of the men who are applying for bail at the Melbourne Magistrates Court have also not stood on request, although the accused have. Mr Reardon yesterday declared anyone in the public gallery who did not stand would be removed from court.

"In my view, the Muslim religion is being used as a guise to help make a political demonstration," he said.

"There is no problem for Muslim people to stand up for a non-Muslim ... It's intended to make a political statement against the government, and by extension, the court system.

"In future, members of the public will be expected to stand upon my entry and leaving the court. They will be requested to leave the court immediately if they refuse to do so."

Mr Reardon said he had received several emails since the filing hearings and a letter sent from a "Sheik Haron", postmarked at the southwestern Sydney suburb of Liverpool on August 4.

He said the same letter was also sent to the Chief Magistrate, Kevin Rudd, Malcolm Turnbull, ASIO and the Australian Federal Police. It has been reported that members of the Australian Muslim community do not believe Sheik Haron is a real cleric and they are concerned he is stirring up anti-Islamic sentiment. His website talks of joining the jihad against Islam oppression.

Mr Reardon said the letter commented on his own conduct and stated that the Australian government oppressed other nations and that no Muslim should "stand for the oppressors".

Counsel for Nayef El Sayed, who had refused to stand for the magistrate at earlier hearings, said his client had taken advice from a cleric at Preston Mosque and was now able to stand.

"At no time was he wanting to make a political statement," lawyer Julian McMahon said of Mr Sayed, who faces one charge of conspiring to plan a terrorist attack.

The bail hearings earlier heard that the AFP was concerned that one of the accused men, Saney Edow Aweys, would commit criminal offences if granted bail.

"A common theme throughout the investigation is hatred of Australia and anyone who doesn't follow Islam," federal agent David Kinton told the court. He said Mr Aweys -- who is charged with conspiring to prepare for a terrorist act, preparing to go to engage in conflict in Somalia and helping another man travel to Somalia to fight -- had a "willingness" to be violent against non-Muslims.

Bail hearings continue today.

[mr anderson]

Prosecutor tried to 'spook' bench

Adrian Lowe | August 27, 2009
http://www.theage.com.au/national/prosecutor-tried-to-spook-bench-20090826-ezrq.html

Terror suspects set for bail hearing

Alison Caldwell | August 27, 2009
.Mp3

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2009/s2668698.htm

ELEANOR HALL: To the courts in Melbourne now where the bail application for three men charged with terrorism offences is being heard.

The men were arrested earlier this month and are accused of plotting an attack on Sydney's Holsworthy army base.

Alison Caldwell is at the Magistrates' Court and joins us now.

So Alison yesterday the magistrate was making it clear he was sceptical about whether these men would comply with any bail conditions. What did the defence team have to say about that today?

ALISON CALDWELL: Yes, hello Eleanor. This morning defence lawyer Julian McMahon politely advised the magistrate Peter Reardon that he'd be making an error of law if he were to apply that kind of thinking in this bail application.

Late yesterday the prosecution added to the magistrate's comments by saying the men were motivated by an ideological cause and therefore the magistrate really had to balance the risks accordingly.

Well Julian McMahon told the magistrate that the prosecution was using the spectre of terrorism on him and cautioned him in effect against falling for it.

Also another defence lawyer in this case Robert Stary spoke about his own previous experience defending a terrorism suspect, the Australian Jack Thomas.

He said during his bail application the prosecution described Thomas as Osama bin Laden's white boy, a sleeper cell waiting to be activated. Well Robert Stary said the judge in that case granted Thomas bail and that after that Jack Thomas behaved quite to the contrary. Indeed he was exonerated in November last year.

ELEANOR HALL: Now often during a bail hearing defence lawyers will raise concerns about the impact on their client's mental state of being kept in a high security prison. Did that happen today?

ALISON CALDWELL: Yes Eleanor it did. The magistrate Peter Reardon asked one of the defence lawyers why they hadn't put forward any evidence of psychological stress on his clients from being in prison, from the weeks he'd spent in these harsh prison conditions.

Robert Stary said the court shouldn't wait for psychological decay to happen before granting bail.

Defence lawyer George Georgiou said we have a 21-year-old here who is presumed innocent but is being kept in the harshest prison regime in Victoria.

ELEANOR HALL: So when will the magistrate hand down his decision and any suggestion from what he said today about which way he will go?

ALISON CALDWELL: Unfortunately not really Eleanor. But Peter Reardon said that he was very much aware of the stress that these men must be experiencing, waiting for his decision. He said that the hearing had been originally set down for two days but instead it had taken four and he said that he would be back at 3 o'clock this afternoon to either hand down a decision or to explain why he couldn't reach one.

ELEANOR HALL: Alison Caldwell at the Magistrates' Court in Melbourne, thank you.

[akston]

I thought this was telling... here come the mole/provocatuers. For that matter, it'll probably turn up that they were requited by this 'Sheikh' on one of these intel-run 'Islamic' websites.

Police quizzed if agent spied on terror suspects
http://statismwatch.ca/2009/08/26/evasive-australian-police-quizzed-whether-covert-operative-was-planted-among-terror-suspects/
http://www.theage.com.au/national/police-quizzed-if-agent-spied-on-terror-suspects-20090825-ey4v.html

Flashback: ‘Imminent’ terror strike foiled in Australia | How MI5 blackmails British Muslims | New York “Terror Plot” Another Government Provocateured Set-Up | All 11 men arrested during anti-terror raids released without charge | Toronto 18 Terror case: RCMP agent Shaikh was instigator who broke law: defence | Five muslims face life for Fort Dix ‘terror plot’ orchestrated by FBI | Third Mole Surfacing in Toronto Terror Trial? | Australian ‘Terror Plot’ Case Bears Remarkable Similarities to ‘Toronto 18′ | FBI Informant in British terror trial given immunity, proceedings raise question of what MI5 knew about 2005 London bombings | Terror accused refuses to discuss links to Pakistan secret service, family threatened | British ‘Terror Suspects’ Were in Contact With MI5

Adrian Lowe, The Age
August 26, 2009

THE Australian Federal Police has come under pressure to reveal whether a covert operative was planted in a group of five Melbourne men charged with terrorism offences.

The charges relate to an alleged plot to attack the Holsworthy Army Base in NSW.

It was revealed yesterday that one of the men, Saney Aweys, had been recorded on telephone intercepts expressing his hatred for Australia and people who were not followers of Islam. Lawyers for the men described the prosecution case as weak.

Under questioning from Aweys’ lawyer, Rob Stary, on the second day of a bail application at Melbourne Magistrates Court, federal agent David Kinton said no civilian witnesses had made statements ”at this stage”.

But when Mr Stary asked if a covert operative had been planted, Mr Kinton hesitated, before replying: ”Can I seek legal advice?”

After an adjournment, Gerard Maguire, for Chief Commissioner Simon Overland, said his instructions could only be disclosed in a closed court.

Mr Stary dropped the questioning, but said he would not relinquish the point. It is likely to be brought up again later.

He suggested that it was not an offence to travel to Somalia, to give money to a Somali or to support al-Shabab at the time of the surveillance, to which the agent agreed. ”I’m going to establish that the case against my client is a weak case because the [Crown] cannot prove [two counts] because of the complex nature of governance in Somalia,” Mr Stary later told the court.

Mr Kinton said: ”A common theme is [Aweys'] hatred towards Australia and anyone who doesn’t follow Islam. He has also indicated a willingness to lead violence against those people.”

The five men - Aweys, 26, of North Carlton, Yacqub Khayre, 22, of Meadow Heights, Nayef El Sayed, 25, of Glenroy, Abdirahman Ahmed, 25, of Preston, and Wissam Fattal, 33 - were arrested on August 4 after counter-terrorism raids across Melbourne. They have each been charged with one count of conspiring to do acts in preparation for a terrorist act.

Aweys has also been charged with one count of aiding, abetting counsel or procuring the commission of an offence by Walid Mohamed in Somalia and conducting preparations for incursions into … Somalia for the purpose of engaging in hostile activities.

Only Aweys, Khayre and El Sayed have applied for bail.

The Federal Government last week listed al-Shabab as a terrorist group.

Following a series of defiant refusals to stand in court, magistrate Peter Reardon, who has presided over the men’s cases during three appearances, said yesterday that anyone who refused to stand when directed would be forced to leave court.

Fattal and El Sayed refused to stand when being addressed by Mr Reardon in their filing hearings, citing religious reasons, but El Sayed complied this week. Some supporters of the bail applicants have refused to stand when Mr Reardon entered or left the court.

Mr Reardon said he received a letter from NSW Sheikh Haron, who instructed him it was not Islamic custom to refuse to stand for non-Muslims. But the sheikh said Muslims were oppressed by terrorist governments like Australia’s.

”It is a sin to stand up for for any person who relates to an oppressive government,” the sheikh wrote.

There are doubts about Sheikh Haron’s authenticity.

The bail application is expected to conclude today.

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Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al-Qaeda To Kill U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries | Cynthia McKinney Demands Immediate Release After Her Gaza-Bound Boat is Seized by Israeli Navy | Obama Administration Shuts Down 9/11 Families Lawsuit | Brookings Publication mentions possibility of ‘Horrific Provocation’ to Trigger Iran Invasion | Goldman Sachs: The Great American Bubble Machine | North Korea threatens to ‘wipe out’ U.S. | Harkat raid ruled illegal | Whistleblower Who Linked “Taliban” Leader To US Intelligence Is Assassinated | Ottawa defies court, refuses emergency travel documents to citizen trapped in Sudan | WHO declares swine flu pandemic, no change in Canada’s approach | Man with Toronto 18 ties convicted in the U.S. | Title law would undermine native rights, lawyers say | Mohawk protesters block Ontario bridge over arming of border guards | Peru protest violence kills natives and police | Tiananmen Square: briefly, anything seemed possible | Harkat lawyers accuse officials of conducting illegal raid | Akwesasne natives protest armed border guards, border crossing closed in retaliation | The Main Result of the “War on Terror”: The Destabilization of Pakistan | Blast at Iranian mosque raises tensions in run-up to presidential election | Abu Ghraib abuse photos ’show rape’ | How MI5 blackmails British Muslims | New York “Terror Plot” Another Government Provocateured Set-Up | G20 police ‘used undercover men to incite crowds’ | US air strikes kill dozens of Afghan civilians | Mutiny, Georgian war games feed tensions between Russia, NATO | Memo: 9/11 Commission Witnesses Were Intimidated By Government “Minders” | UK: Police caught on tape trying to recruit climate activist as informant | Revenue Canada destroys man’s life, refuses to pay for million-dollar mistake | Israeli troops kill apartheid wall protester | Secret Homeland Security Threat Assessment Labels Gun Owners Potential Terrorists | Moldova’s ‘Twitter Revolution’: Made in America? | 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| UK: Police warn of ’summer of rage’ due to recession | Police and farmers clash in Greece, militant group attacks police station | RCMP mole in Toronto 18 case says he felt ‘bad’ in terror sting | Toronto 18 Terror case: RCMP agent Shaikh was instigator who broke law: defence | Anarchists battle police in central Athens | Swiss nuclear-smuggling suspect says CIA made him do it | Video shows proof of phosphorous bombs in Gaza | Rioters Were Paid To Provoke the Police in Bulgaria | Khadr trial date up in air after ’secret’ refiling of charges: defence lawyer | Indian Mumbai dossier details gunmen’s calls with handlers | Proposed Missile Shield seen as Provocation by Russia | They hate us for our bombs | Greek Cops Caught on Video Posing as Anarchists | Counterterrorism squad secretly taped arrest of British whistleblower, elected MP | Banks won’t say where U.S. bailout money going | Bush Insider Who Planned To Tell All Killed In Plane Crash, Non-Profit Demands Full Federal Investigation | Lawyers slam CSIS on phone recordings | CSIS monitoring calls between suspects and their lawyers | IMF Chief Warns Of Riots In Response To Economic Crisis | Greek protesters seek European support | Anti-government riots subside, general strike shuts down Greece | India to create national spy agency in wake of Mumbai attacks | Amnesty: Disproportionate Police Force Used Against Peaceful Greek Demonstrators | Greek Police Battle Mourners, Memories of Dictatorship after Student Shooting | Former ISI Chief: Mumbai And 9/11 Both “Inside Jobs” | Blackwater Guards facing Charges in Case of 17 Dead Iraqi Citizens | Mumbai Attacks Politicize Long-Isolated Elite | Neo-cons still preparing for Iran attack | Decision to prorogue parliament sets ‘very dangerous’ precedent: constitutional expert | Harper halts parliament amid row | EU Police to Stream into Kosovo Despite Protests | Liberals and NDP sign unprecedented pact; to pursue stimulus, carbon taxes | UK launches high-visibility community punishment | Mumbai terror attacks: Rice calls for ‘total transparency’ from Pakistan | Cuts to party subsidies will stay: Flaherty | Tories back down on plan to withdraw funding for opposition parties | Counterterrorism squad rounds up UK opposition member over whistleblower incident | “Fair-skinned, blonde” assailants began attack in Mumbai | Quebec First Nations declare sovereignty, opposition to provincial development plans | Stephen Harper, evil genius, to pull financial plug on opposition: National Post | Mumbai Attacks Blamed On Al-Qaeda As Pretext For U.S. Military Response | Take note Naomi Klein: Democrats consider crises as opportunities, too | German Intelligence Agents Caught Staging False Flag Terror in Kosovo | Paulson uttered threat of Martial Law to get bailout passed | Bad news bearers warned to zip it by Kremlin | UK Pilots threaten strike over ID card plan | Paulson, Bernanke defend change of plan: $700-billion now to be given directly to banks | Don’t-ask-don’t-tell Policy: Pakistan and U.S. Have Tacit Deal On Airstrikes | Beijing peasants bullied, beaten off of family farms by state-developer blocs | Congress Accuses Federal Reserve Bagman Of Bailout “Bait and Switch” During Angry Hearing | ACLU wants probe into police-staged DNC protest | Ex-Italian President: Provocateur Riots Then “Beat The Shit Out Of Protesters” | US helicopter raid inside of Syria kills eight | Wall Street banks in $70bn staff payout | Representatives Were Threatened With Martial Law In America Over Bailout Bill | Harper threatens confidence motion over twice failed crime bill if re-elected | American Intelligence Contractors Leak Canadian Toronto 18 ‘Terror Training’ Video to Web | NATO Considers Deploying Rapid-Reaction Force in States Bordering Russia | Russia: US delivering weapons to Georgia under cover of humanitarian aid | Protesters: Police pepper-sprayed peaceful gathering | Pentagon Front Groups Release Laughable Olympics “Terror” Video | Georgia, Russia Go to War | Bombs explode, Washington-based Intelcenter releases yet another terror video, China cracks down on transport security | Cheney Considered False Flag Operation to Justify War with Iran | OPP officer posed as journalist during 2007 Mohawk protest | US scales up covert destabilization efforts in Iran, continues funding ‘al-Qaeda’ | Afghanistan suggests Pakistan responsible for embassy bombing | Chinese riot in Shenzen over rape, murder, subsequent police coverup | Police inspector posed as militant protester | Report: U.S. Gave Green Light For Taliban Prison Attack | Many Question if Toronto “Terrorists” Were Led by Informants as Case Weakens | Australian ‘Terror Plot’ Case Bears Remarkable Similarities to ‘Toronto 18′ | Ex-Italian President: Intel Agencies Know 9/11 An Inside Job | Declassified: Israel, USA Attempted Deliberate Sinking of USS Liberty During Mideast War | Quebec police admit agents posed as protesters | New Bin Laden Video: 100% Forgery | Undercover cops tried to incite violence in Montebello: union leader | Officers never posed as protesters: Quebec police | Investigative Reporter Seymour Hersh: US Indirectly Funding Al-Qaeda Linked Sunni Groups in Move to Counter Iran | Alleged Toronto terror plot included two police agents | U.S. Government Caught Red-Handed Releasing Staged Al-Qaeda Videos | Canadians who trust our secret police should think again | British Special Forces Caught Carrying Out Staged Terror In Iraq? | George W Bush Authorized 911 Attacks Says Government Insider | Swiss scientists 95% sure that Bin Laden recording was fake | US military advisers arrive in Georgia | Operation Northwoods Declassified: U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba | RCMP bombed oil site in ‘dirty tricks’ campaign

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 3:24 pm and is filed under police, provocation, terror.
 

 

[mr anderson]

Army base terrorism case 'exaggerated'

August 28, 2009
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/27/2669113.htm?section=australia

A lawyer has accused police of embellishing the case against a group of Melbourne men accused of plotting an attack on the Holsworthy army base in Sydney. The comments were made outside court after a magistrate refused bail for three of the men.

Nayef el Sayed, Yacqub Khayre and Saney Aweys, along with two co-accused, are charged with conspiring to attack the army base earlier this month. The three accused terrorists waved and smiled at their families after the magistrate announced the decision.

Outside court, defence lawyer Rob Stary accused prosecutors of exaggerating the case against the men.

"There was no imminent terrorist attack," Mr Stary said.

Because they face terrorism offences, the accused had to prove to the court there were exceptional circumstances that warranted their release. The magistrate said they failed that test and he was not persuaded the case was weak.

Counter-terrorism agents told the court the case was largely based on recorded conversations between the men, but defence lawyers said the evidence was vague and ambiguous.

"There's a sophisticated and calculated attack against the authorities to overstate, embellish and exaggerate cases," Mr Stary said.

The court also heard the men were being kept in the high security unit at Barwon prison. The defence argued prisoners who have not been convicted should not be housed in such conditions.

"The prosecution conceded that the conditions the men are kept in might not be ideal, but they argued that the prison regime is lawful and that it doesn't amount to exceptional circumstances," he said.

The accused men have indicated they will fight the terrorism charges.

It is expected they will appeal against today's bail decision.

[mr anderson]

Terror trio set to fight bail refusal

Milanda Rout | August 28, 2009
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25991848-5006785,00.html

THREE men accused of planning to attack the Holsworthy army base will appeal against a decision by a magistrate to refuse them bail.

Lawyers for Saney Edow Aweys, Nayef El Sayed and Yacub Khayre said they planned to go to the Victorian Supreme Court to reapply for bail after magistrate Peter Reardon yesterday found they had not demonstrated the exceptional circumstances required to be released.

Mr Reardon expressed concerns about the conditions in which the men were being held in the high-security Acacia Unit in Victoria's Barwon prison, where they were being kept with some of the state's most notorious convicted criminals and spent up to 18 hours a day locked in their cells.

He said people who were charged with crimes were presumed innocent until proven guilty and should be kept in as "humane" conditions as possible.

"The present conditions ... are not desirable for men awaiting trial," Mr Reardon said. "It's not what ordinary people would expect."

But Mr Reardon said this alone did not amount to exceptional circumstances, which the lawyers for the three men had to prove in order for them to be allowed out on bail on terrorism charges.

The magistrate also rejected the argument put forward by defence counsel that the prosecution case against the accused men, which consisted of a summary read out to the court, was vague and ambiguous.

"I am not persuaded by each applicant that the crown case is a weak one," Mr Reardon said. "It might be well argued that the crown case is the opposite of weak at this stage."

Mr Reardon acknowledged there would be substantial delays in the case and the accused men would not be put on trial for another two years.

Mr Aweys, Mr El Sayed and Mr Khayre were charged with conspiring to plan a terrorist attack on Sydney's Holsworthy base earlier this month after being arrested in dawn raids at 19 properties around Victoria. Mr Aweys also faces charges of preparing to go to Somalia to engage in conflict and helping another man travel there to fight in the civil war.

Two other men, Abdirahman Mohamud Ahmed and Wissam Mahmoud Fattal, have been charged over the terror plot but have not so far applied for bail.

Prosecutor Nick Robinson argued during the four-day bail hearing that the three men should not be released because they had a "propensity to violence" and they were committed to a terrorist ideology.

Outside court, Rob Stary, acting for Mr Aweys, accused prosecutors of "crying wolf", saying the evidence they had against his client fell significantly short of the allegations they made. He also said the three men were being held in horrendous conditions at Barwon prison while awaiting trial.

"They are unconvicted, innocent people," Mr Stary said. "They are Guantanamo Bay-like conditions ... how can a person properly instruct their lawyers, how can they get a fair trial in these circumstances? (They are) supposed to have a presumption of innocence. Well, in these cases there's a presumption of guilt."

Mr Stary also confirmed the men would be appealing against the decision to the Supreme Court.

The four-day bail hearing was consistently packed with family and supporters of the accused men, some of whom initially refused to stand for Mr Reardon as he left and entered the courtroom.

This led to the magistrate warning the public gallery that he would instruct security officers to remove anyone who did not adhere to this court tradition. He also revealed that he had received hate mail from a purported Sydney Muslim cleric over previous comments he made about some of the defendants not standing during an earlier court hearing.

The men are due back in court in October.

[Unintelligable Name]

Least they get a trial in Australia....  

Military Commissions Act in the States = No trial, no habeus corpus. (If you are declared an enemy combatant by the executive branch)

[EvadingGrid]

Still think that not enough attention is focused on Oz.