Australia Terror Suspects 'Were Stopped Near Nuclear Plant'

Three of the 18 terror suspects arrested in Sydney and Melbourne last week were stopped and questioned by police near Australia's only nuclear power station, it was claimed today.

A document released to the court where the eight people arrested in Sydney had their first hearing alleged that three of the suspects had been stopped in their car near the city's nuclear facility in December 2004.

The men also had an off-road motorbike and claimed they were there to ride, the document said. It added that all three had given different versions of the day's events to police.

Police inquiries revealed the lock of a gate to a reactor reservoir had recently been cut. The three - Mazen Touma, Mohammed Elomar and Abdul Rakib Hasan - along with five other Sydney men, have been charged with conspiring to manufacture explosives in preparation for a terrorist act.

Plot to blow up Sydney nuclear plant

By Nick Squires in Sydney
The Telegraph (UK)
(Filed: 15/11/2005)

Islamic terrorists were planning to inflict "maximum damage" with a devastating attack on Australia's only nuclear reactor, police claimed yesterday.

Three of the 18 men arrested last week in the country's biggest counter-terrorism operation were caught acting suspiciously near the Lucas Heights research reactor, 20 miles from central Sydney, last December, police alleged in a document submitted in court.

The Lucas Heights nuclear facility

When questioned separately, the men gave contradictory accounts of their activities, it was said. Police later found that a lock on a gate to a reservoir in the grounds of the reactor had been freshly cut.

During searches of the suspects' homes over the past four months, police found batteries, stopwatches, 165 detonators and hundreds of litres of chemicals similar to those used in the July 7 bombings in London.

They also found firearms, ammunition, machetes, Samurai swords, a computer memory stick containing instructions in Arabic on how to make explosives and videos entitled Sheikh Osama's Training Course and Are You Ready to Die?

The police claimed that the suspected militants spent time earlier this year at remote camps in New South Wales.

"This training is consistent with the modus operandi of terrorists prior to attacks," the 20-page document said. Police said the spiritual leader of the two groups arrested in Sydney and Melbourne, Abdul Nacer Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr, urged his followers to unleash "maximum damage" as part of a holy war. The Islamic preacher, based in Melbourne, was described in court as "a Muslim extremist".

Lawyers for the men have said there was no specific evidence of a planned attack and claimed the charges brought against the group were politically motivated.

The 18 men are charged with conspiring to do an act in preparation for a terrorist act or being members of a terrorist organisation.

In Brisbane, Australia's third largest city, authorities ordered all public buses and trains to unload their passengers for 30 minutes during yesterday evening's rush hour after three anonymous telephone threats, which later appeared to have been a hoax.

From Reuters, via WaPo, via Jihadwatch:

...Their Islamic spiritual leader [Abdul Nacer Benbrika, aka Abu Bakr], also charged with terrorism offences, told the men if they wanted to die for jihad they should inflict "maximum damage," according to a 21-page police court document...
...At a February meeting Benbrika talked to the Sydney men about fighting those who opposed Sharia law.
"If we want to die for jihad, we have to have maximum damage. Maximum damage. Damage their buildings, everything. Damage their lives," said Benbrika, according to the document....

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.