Posted on 11/03/2005 6:34:53 PM PST by IntelliQuark
IT was an observant lawyer going about his business in Collins Street, Melbourne, who noticed something that struck him as odd - a man filming the Australian Stock Exchange building with a small home video camera.
Not long afterwards, another Melburnian spotted someone filming a city train station and also reported it. Police found the same car had been used and when they traced its owner, alarm bells starting clanging.
The vehicle used on both occasions belonged to the father-in-law of a man high on the watch-list of ASIO and the Australian Federal Police. The suspect was a member of an extreme Islamist group based in Melbourne that was already under surveillance in an investigation code-named Operation Pandanus.
The stakeout had begun in August last year, after a tip-off from an insider connected to Melbourne's most radical Islamist prayer room, the Michael Street mosque in Brunswick.
The group was heard discussing terrorist attacks overseas, and investigators became convinced they were considering an attack in Australia. According to a well-placed source, "considering" is the operative word; the men had not discussed details or chosen a target, but were canvassing whether such an attack would be possible in Australia.
As the surveillance continued, one of the group was intercepted at an airport, about to leave Australia for Lebanon. In his luggage was a videotape containing the footage shot at the Stock Exchange and the train station.
Operation Pandanus continued for 10 months. But the authorities had no grounds on which to charge the handful of men under surveillance. They had not committed any criminal offence.
The men under surveillance were well-known to ASIO and the AFP as key players in a web of Islamic extremists in Australia.
They were followers of a Melbourne-based cleric, Nacer Benbrika, known for his extreme Islamist views.
Benbrika became a follower of the controversial Sheik Mohammed Omran, leader of the fundamentalist Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jemaah group in Australia, who resides in Melbourne. Sheik Omran is a supporter of the British-based al-Qa'ida leader Abu Qatada, whom he hosted on a speaking tour of Australia in 1994. Sheik Omran was also named in Spanish court documents as an associate of the Madrid-based al-Qa'ida chief Abu Dada, an accusation Sheik Omran has consistently denied. Sheik Omran's key lieutenant in Sydney, Sheik Abdul Salam Mohammed Zoud, was identified in a dossier compiled by France's leading terrorism investigator, judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, as "the recruiter in Australia of volunteers for the jihad".
Benbrika's views were even more extreme than those of others in Sheik Omran's group, and they eventually parted ways. Benbrika is a self-confessed Osama bin Laden devotee. In August this year he told the ABC: "Osama bin Laden, he is a great man. Osama bin Laden was a great man before 11 September, which they said he did it, and until now nobody knows who did it."
Benbrika cultivated his own following among zealous young Muslims in Melbourne, among them a number of young Australian-born converts.
From at least early 2001, Benbrika's followers were travelling to Afghanistan to train in bin Laden's camps. Documents tendered in one terrorism court case reveal that in May-June 2001, three Melbourne men, all Australian-born and all followers of Benbrika, were enrolled in al-Qa'ida's boot camp for foreigners, Camp Faruq, near Kandahar.
The trio included one man facing terrorism charges, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and another two who have since returned to Australia and are under surveillance.
The Australian recruits all completed al-Qa'ida's tatziri, or beginners' course, which included topography, military tactics, explosives use and training in weapons ranging from AK-47s to rocket-propelled grenades.
While the Australians were in training, bin Laden was a frequent visitor to Camp Faruq. One of the Melbourne men, known by the alias Abu Jihad, described a meeting with the al-Qa'ida chief in a statement to the AFP. According to Abu Jihad, bin Laden took a personal interest in events in Australia. "Our group had a short conversation with Osama bin Laden, during which he asked who we were and where we were from. He also asked how the Muslims in Australia were going," Abu Jihad said.
The Melbourne group that was the focus of Operation Pandanus is also closely connected to the Sydney branch of Sheik Omran's Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jemaah, based in Lakemba, in Sydney's west.
A key conduit between the two groups is a Sydney man in his early 30s who goes by the alias Abu Asad. Abu Asad was named in Sydney's Central Local Court in June this year during the committal case against another Sydney man, Faheem Khalid Lodhi, who awaits trial on terrorism charges.
During Operation Pandanus, Abu Asad was monitored meeting the Melbourne-based group that was under surveillance. He was accompanied by another suspect who was the owner of a rural property in NSW that was raided before the Sydney 2000 Olympics. It was described by former ASIO agent and Intelligent Risks chief Neil Fergus as having "all the hallmarks of a full-blown terrorist training camp".
The investigators running Operation Pandanus finally moved in June this year, raiding at least eight properties in Sydney and Melbourne. Benbrika's home in Melbourne's Broadmeadows was among the houses raided.
However, no charges were laid, because under the existing terrorism laws no criminal offence had been committed.
Well dang. I thought the backpack dropping the white powdery residue, fuses protruding from shoesoles, and a bloody scimitar would be the tipoff.
Don't overlook the obvious.
Sick ba$tards.
Isn't the 'spotted terrorist' an endangered species? Where's PETA when you need them?!
"RADICAL Muslim clerics who praise terrorist acts could have their mosques banned and members of their assemblies defined as terrorists under the nation's new counter-terrorism laws.
Under the new legislation, tabled in federal parliament yesterday, recent comments by radical clerics Sheik Mohammed Omran and Sheik Abdul Salam Mohammed Zoud could be defined as advocating a terrorist act."
Where does free speech stop and incitement to terrorism begin. It's a hard decision. They do need to crack down on these extremists who brainwash people to commit terrorist acts.
LOL Good one!
LOL.
Now, this is very interesting.
A couple of years ago, the Australian Federal Government launched a campaign to get people to report suspicious activity. TV ads, mailouts, newspaper ads, etc.
The slogan for this campaign is 'Be Alert, Not Alarmed'.
And it's been attacked over and over again by the left as a waste of time, and a stunt. They constantly refer to it as the 'fridge magnet' campaign, because one of the mailouts contained a fridge magnet with the hotline number on it.
One of the things the TV ads specifically ask people to report is people videotaping public buildings for no clear reason.
It's going to be very interesting for the leftists here who've derided that campaign if it turns out it has helped stop an attack.
Why aren't these bums simply made to "disappear"?
Who was the brainy bastard who gave away one of our detection methods?
It reads like some people were doing some profiling. Good for them.
The jihadis were training terrorists all over the world...with the exception of Saddam's Iraq. Only liberal Democrats would be stupid enough to believe this...but actually, they know they are lying when they say it.
Yes. Arrest them, flush them down the sewer, and then say the escaped and you have a major manhunt looking for them.
This is very interesting. I didn't know. I just came across this article and thought it's worth posting it, to let people know that it makes sense to "be alert, not alarmed", but I didn't know the very appropriate slogan.
I think they should have the same campaign in the US.
If we can prevent these guys from attacking, I can say that we not only have the best soldiers in the world, but the best 'terrorist-spotters' also.
I can't figure why these morons need videos of a building or a train before they blow it up. Are they afraid the bombers won't know what they are looking for? "Mohammed, this is a building. This is a train. Bad. Blow up."
I had a dog once that was so stupid I had to show him videos of trees and fireplugs before I took him for walks. Maybe there's a connection.
Those bigoted Australians! A lot of regular folk enjoy videotaping important centers of high traffic and commerce. The fact that they might belong to an Islamic group is beside the point! /s
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