Ah, those cwazy wahhabis!
FIVE associates of terrorist suspects bashed a cameraman outside Melbourne Magistrates' Court yesterday.
Posted on 11/09/2005 10:40:47 AM PST by swarthyguy
NOT for nothing is it known as 'Mother of Satan'. The crystal explosive is highly unstable and sensitive to heat and friction.
And it is a favourite of terrorists.
It was used in the London bombings in July and it would have caused destruction in Australia too.
Australian police believe that what they unearthed yesterday during a raid on a red brick house in Sydney were ingredients for 'Mother of Satan' bombs.
Australian newspapers reported that among items seized from the Sydney house included at least two large plastic containers, each holding several litres of a clear liquid.
Police suspect the chemicals were intended as ingredients for triacetone tiperoxide or TATP. It is a highly volatile crystal explosive used by Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel. It was also used in the backpack bombs that killed 52 people in London.
The substance is so powerful that a few hundred grams is all it takes to release hundreds of litres of gas into the air in a fraction of a second, a phenomenon known as entropic explosion.
In its finished form, TATP is almost undetectable by conventional bomb-detection equipment and even sniffer dogs.
One key ingredient is a solvent such as acetone, the other a bleach such as hydrogen peroxide.
An artist's sketch showing the nine terror suspects arrested in Melbourne appearing in court yesterday. While the basic ingredients of TATP are common, they are dangerous to handle.
Up to 40 Palestinians are thought to have been killed while working with TATP, hence its nickname, 'Mother of Satan'.
Police are now conducting forensic tests on the substances seized yesterday.
Australian newspapers reported that police from the New South Wales counter-terrorism command had been conducting a surveillance and intelligence investigation into the arrested group for two years.
It began amid international concern over certain Muslim groups under the influence of fundamentalists.
About 18 months ago, Victoria police also began their own investigation into followers of the radical Melbourne-based cleric Abdul Nacer Benbrika, a public supporter of Osama bin Laden better known as Abu Bakr.
The two states found out that that members from Melbourne and Sydney were travelling to meet each other.
So Operation Pandanus, involving both states' police, the Australian Federal Police and Asio (the Australian intelligence agency), was formed.
The big break for Operation Pandanus came about six weeks ago when they got the tip-off, said NSW police counter-terrorism commander Norm Hazzard.
A Sydney chemical supplier warned them that members of a suspected terrorist cell were attempting to acquire the ingredients of TATP.
Australian authorities had asked such suppliers to report any unusual or out or the ordinary purchases.
The supplier knew that the chemicals the men were attempting to purchase in large quantities could be mixed to create 'Mother of Satan' bombs. He did not hesitate to call the police.
ON CLOSE WATCH
'We had been watching these guys, listening to them and following them for 18 months.
'They were right under our noses and they knew it too,' one senior law enforcement source told the Sydney Morning Herald.
'This intelligence on the chemicals. That was the turning point, when the threat became real.'
In June, police and Asio officers raided properties in Sydney and Melbourne, with some targets including men who were arrested yesterday.
At the time, no one was charged with terror offences but, in recent months, investigators have monitored increasing 'chatter' among group members.
By Monday lunchtime, NSW police commissioner Ken Moroney decided that to hold off arrests - with planning of an attack allegedly under way - was too great a risk.
He phoned Police Minister Carl Scully requesting that an urgent and special authorisation be invoked to use unprecedented arrest and search powers.
With that done, 360 NSW officers and almost 80 federal police officers assembled at Westmead in Sydney's west at 11pm (8pm Singapore time).
The briefing lasted for over two hours, and at 2.30am yesterday, the police executed 15 search warrants in Sydney's southwest. Melbourne police launched their raids simultaneously.
Lawyers for the arrested men deny they are terrorists, but the investigation will continue, possibly leading to more arrests.
One of the Melbourne men detained, Abdulla Mehri, allegedly wanted to become a suicide bomber.
During his hearing for bail, the court heard that, in September last year, he allegedly went to accused terror cell leader Abu Bakr seeking permission to become a martyr in Australia.
He was apparently told to wait, but became impatient.
'He wanted to die here. He said he wanted to be a martyr,' detective sergeant Chris Murray, of the joint counter terrorism team, told the court.
'It was quite clear that he wanted to go the way of... similar to a suicide bomber,' he said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He praised Osama on Aussie TV
THE accused ringleader behind Australia's Islamic terror network has been a well-known face in the country for months.
Abdul Nacer Benbrika, better known as Abu Bakr, rose to infamy in August when he appeared in a television interview praising terror kingpin Osama bin Laden as a 'great man' and said that he did not recognise the laws of Australia, reported Sydney's Daily Telegraph.
That's when Australians began likening him to Abu Bakar Bashir, the leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah terror group.
Yesterday, the 45-year-old from Melbourne was charged with belonging to a terrorist organisation and directing its activities.
While he made clear his radical views during the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) interview, his extremist tendencies were kept well under wraps when he first arrived in Australia in 1989 as a refugee.
According to The Australian, the Algerian-born cleric told immigration authorities that he not only loved Australia, but also that he was scared to go back to the 'dangers' of his homeland.
His application to extend his stay in the country was also supported by moderate Islamic clerics, including the influential Imam of Melbourne's huge Preston mosque, Sheik Fehmi.
In 1992, he married a Lebanese-born Australian woman and obtained Australian citizenship in 1998.
The couple have six children, with a seventh on the way.
But as the years passed, Abu Bakr started airing more extremist views during prayer sessions at the Preston mosque.
After he was expelled from the mosque for his extreme views, he took his followers to another prayer hall, where he began schooling them on his radical interpretation of Islam.
Abu Bakr's activities eventually caught the attention of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio).
In March this year, he had his passport confiscated by Asio and was placed under 24-hour surveillance because he was deemed as 'likely to engage in conduct that might prejudice the security of Australia or a foreign country' if he travelled overseas.
Asio also raided Abu Bakr's apartment twice in June after the authorities spotted groups of men filming Melbourne landmarks, including Flinders St station and the Stock Exchange.
Abu Bakr, whose followers have attended terrorist training camps in Central Asia, claimed that he was no threat to Australia's security, but added that he would be 'betraying his religion' if he stopped his students from training as terrorists.
Abu Bakr is scheduled to appear in court again on 31 Jan.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Faces of anger outside Melbourne court
FIVE associates of terrorist suspects bashed a cameraman outside Melbourne Magistrates' Court yesterday.
Channel 7's Matt Rose, 31, was rained with punches, dragged by the hair and later had a chair smashed down on him.
Chairs were thrown at other cameramen and into traffic on a nearby street.
A scuffle broke out minutes before the lunchtime attack inside the court building, where bail was being applied for accused terrorists Hany Taha and Abdulla Merhi.
Hounded by the media, the men demanded that Mr Rose stop filming.
Ah, those cwazy wahhabis!
FIVE associates of terrorist suspects bashed a cameraman outside Melbourne Magistrates' Court yesterday.
Did it mention Wahhabism somwhere?
they all look guilty to me.
This must be a misunderstanding about a friendly, peace loving bunch of gentle men. I bet they've never beaten even one of their wives.
bttt
LOL!
There's not an 80 year old white woman in the bunch. Must be racial profiling.
Ahhh... the results of observant, patriotic citizens. MSM, are YOU listening???? < crickets>
Amish?
this simply can't be right..everyone in that sketch looks like a middle eastern muslim male..we all KNOW it's little old ladies in wheelchairs that present the true problem..profiling I tell ya, profiling..(sarc/off)
He looks sort of like a young Abe Lincoln.
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