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FBI Warns of Potential Terror Attacks The FBI and Department of Homeland Security today issued an analytical "note" to U.S. law-enforcement officials cautioning that al-Qaida terrorists have in the past expressed interest in attacking public buildings using a dozen suicide bombers each carrying 20 kilograms of explosives. Authors with the U.S. Office of Intelligence and Analysis added that they have "no credible or specific information that terrorists are planning operations against public buildings in the United States." The FBI and DHS analysts said they were releasing the note because "it is important for local authorities and building owners and...

JACK THOMAS, the first Australian to be constrained by a counter-terrorism control order, has emphatically denied claims he travelled overseas with convicted terrorist Jack Roche or that he was close to the extremist Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir. Mr Thomas told the Herald yesterday that he met Bashir and Roche once only, when he and his wife, Maryati, were returning with a tour group from a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. He said he exchanged pleasantries with Roche but could not speak to Bashir because he did not understand Indonesian. "Bashir came to the hotel … with Jack Roche. As far...

WITHIN two years of Abu Bakar Bashir's last clandestine visit to Australia, terror suspect Jack Thomas had met and married - within a day - a close friend of the cleric's wife and was meeting with senior figures in the terrorist network Jemaah Islamiah. Thomas's new wife, Indonesian-born Maryati Idris, was central to introducing him to the organisation that has been blamed for a series of terrorist attacks including the two Bali bombings. Through these connections he was also introduced to the mysterious Indonesian twin brothers - Abdul Rahim Ayub and Abdul Rahman Ayub - who were entrusted with setting...

FEDERAL police have issued accused terrorist Jack Thomas with a control order, putting him under curfew and forcing him to return to Melbourne. In the first example of the federal Attorney-General using the controversial part of the new anti-terror laws, an interim order was issued against Mr Thomas, who was on holidays in eastern Victoria, this morning. An AFP spokesman said an interim order was made in the Federal Magistrates' Court yesterday and signed off by Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, but would not confirm it was against Mr Thomas, dubbed "Jihad Jack". Mr Thomas was convicted in February on charges of...

Jack Thomas's freedom is a victory for our enemies THAT Jack Thomas has had his terrorism conviction quashed by a court will please those who wish to see the law used as a weapon in the service of their ideological objections to the national defence effort in the war on terror. But it is a defeat for common sense and Australia's national security. And al-Qa'ida and its allies will interpret it as showing that Australia is intellectually enervated and incapable of understanding how serious the terror threat is. It is easy to argue that the quashing of Mr Thomas's conviction...

An appeal court in Australia has quashed the conviction of a man known as Jihad Jack, who was convicted of receiving funds from al-Qaeda. Muslim convert Joseph "Jack" Thomas was found guilty in February of accepting Aus$5,000 ($3,500) and a plane ticket from an al-Qaeda agent in Pakistan. The former taxi driver was sentenced to five years in prison in March. But the Victoria Court of Appeal ruled that some of the evidence used against him was not admissible at his trial. Mr Thomas had appealed on the grounds that his interview with Australian Federal Police (AFP) while under detention...

Bin Laden's friend Jihad Jack freed by Australian judges By Nick Squires in Sydney (Filed: 19/08/2006) A British-born Muslim convert jailed in Australia on charges of receiving money and an airline ticket from al-Qa'eda terrorists, was freed last night after his conviction was overturned. Joseph Terrence Thomas, 33, nicknamed Jihad Jack after claiming that he had met al-Qa'eda's leader Osama bin Laden three times, was jailed for five years in March. But in a judgment seen as a blow to the Australian government, the appeal court in Melbourne ruled that some of the evidence used against him was not admissible....

AN appeal court has quashed the convictions of the first man jailed under Australia's new anti-terror laws. Joseph Terrence Thomas, dubbed Jihad Jack, was arrested in Pakistan in January 2003 and convicted in Australia in February this year of receiving funds from al-Qaeda and holding a false passport. He was sentenced to five years' jail with a minimum term of two years. But today, Victorian Court of Appeal Justices Chris Maxwell, Frank Vincent and Peter Buchanan quashed the convictions, saying the evidence used to find Thomas guilty was inadmissable. More to come...

MELBOURNE man Jack Thomas could face up to 25 years in jail after being found guilty of accepting cash from terror group al-Qaida. The 32-year-old father of three was behind bars last night after being the first person charged and convicted under Australia's updated anti-terrorism laws. Thomas was also found guilty by a Supreme Court jury yesterday of falsifying his passport. However, the jurors cleared Thomas of accusations he planned to become an Australian sleeper agent for Osama bin Laden. After four days of deliberations, the jury found Thomas not guilty of the two more serious charges of providing support...

TERRORIST suspect "Jihad" Jack Thomas was granted bail at his third attempt in Melbourne today. Joseph Terrence Thomas, 31, also known as Jack, broke down and wept as Victorian Chief Magistrate Ian Gray granted the bail application at the third attempt. Mr Gray said Mr Thomas's application was now a much stronger one than it had been on the previous occasions. He took into account Mr Thomas's fragile psychiatric state, the harsh conditions under which he was being held at Barwon prison and his co-operation with the authorities. Under the bail conditions, on a $100,000 surety provided by his father,...