Posted on 01/05/2007 7:42:51 AM PST by dead
STOLEN Australian Army rocket launchers are in the hands of a home-grown terrorist group which planned to use them to attack Sydney's Lucas Heights nuclear reactor, police allege.
The Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty, said a man arrested in Leumeah yesterday and charged with possessing stolen weapons was linked to a group that had planned to attack buildings in Sydney, including the reactor.
Mr Keelty would not publicly link the man, Taha Abdul-Rahman, directly to a plan to target the reactor, referring only to "evidence of a proposed target", and saying: "Clearly, there was a plan for the use of the weapon."
But the NSW Assistant Commissioner, Nick Kaldas, said: "There were a couple of sites that were probably being considered and that's one of them."
A source said an informant had specifically suggested there was a plan to attack the reactor with a rocket launcher.
Abdul-Rahman, 28, was arrested yesterday after the third raid on his home since September 30. Police allege he sold seven rocket launchers for $5000 each to Adnan "Eddie" Darwiche, a Sydney drug dealer who is now in prison serving a sentence for double murder.
In September, police from the NSW Middle Eastern Crime Squad bought one rocket launcher from Darwiche for $50,000 during an investigation into a bloody drug war in Sydney's south-west.
They say another five launchers are in the possession of the terrorist group, and that Darwiche has the seventh one hidden.
The Darwiche link came about as he tried to cut a deal to get a reduction in his life sentence for the murders of a woman and a rival member of the Razzak drug syndicate.
When he sold the first launcher to police, through a go-between, he also passed on to them 20 kilograms of Power Gel explosive.
On December 15, the Herald first reported the theft of up to nine launchers from the Army, and also revealed details of the extraordinary deal with Darwiche, in which police considered giving him a certificate of indemnity from prosecution. On that same day, Abdul-Rahman's home was raided again.
Mr Keelty yesterday said police had established a link between Abdul-Rahman and others arrested under the high-profile Operation Pendennis between November 2005 and March last year.
After the Pendennis raids, investigators said they had foiled imminent terrorist attacks in Sydney and Melbourne. The group of alleged Islamic terrorists was said to have been penetrated by an undercover police agent.
Mr Keelty said that as those arrested as part of Operation Pendennis were still before the courts, there was a limit to how much he could say about alleged ties to yesterday's arrest over the stolen launchers.
"We are continuing our investigations not only in relation to Operation Pendennis, but in respect of this aspect of the operation," Mr Keelty said.
Asked if the man arrested yesterday was linked to the group that allegedly made threats to attack facilities including Lucas Heights, he said: "Yes, he is."
The investigation into the stolen launchers is understood to focus on private security patrols of military facilities.
After his arrest yesterday, Abdul-Rahman was charged with offences relating to the theft and procurement of the rocket launchers.
According to court documents, police allege he is a second or third link in a chain that passed the weapons on to others after he acquired them from an unknown source, who got them from within the military. Abdul-Rahman is then alleged to have sold all seven to Darwiche for his alleged use in the drug war.
It is alleged Darwiche, now serving a double life sentence in the supermax high-security prison at Goulburn, sold five of them to the terrorist group with cells in Sydney's south-west and Melbourne.
Abdul-Rahman was taken to Sydney's Central Local Court late yesterday charged with 17 terrorism related offences.
They include two counts of dishonestly receiving stolen property, and seven counts of unauthorised possession of a prohibited weapon.
He was also charged with possession of ammunition under section 65 of the Ammunition and Firearms Act 1996.
His solicitor, Sam Abbas, told the magistrate, Robyn Denes, he did not want his client to be taken from underground cells and brought before the court.
With Abdul-Rahman's partner watching quietly from the public gallery, Mr Abbas said his client was not seeking bail, nor entering a plea but would make a bail application next Wednesday via video link.
Mr Kaldas said there was a wider investigation into links between the criminal world and terrorism in Australia.
"The line between criminality and politically motivated acts of terrorism is blurring worldwide," Mr Kaldas said. "We are open minded on whether other rockets have fallen into the hands of terror groups."
The whole idea around MPBR is to have small size easily managed power stations that when clustered make a large power plant. China is way out front with MPBR and plans to have their test 10 MW HTR-10 reactor in 2007 with full scale production following shortly -- assuming there are no show stoppers. China plans to use the AVR technology, which they have already licensed. China may end up with the largest nuclear reactor build out in history, while we sit and argue about what ??
If all goes as planned, china will have 30 200 MW reactors on line by 2020. If global warming is such a crisis, as alGore says it is, should we not be on the same time line -- I think so.
Thanks. I never knew about this either.
Very, very interesting. Thanks for the ping. Sending out to backhoe & cindy for their ping/history lists.
I'm no explosives guy, but I'd bet my last dollar that a shoulder fired rocket wouldn't do the trick.
No concrete container? Sorry, Sax, cancel my last post.
When you consider the inherent inaccuracies of these rockets, there isn't a chance they could penetrate the shell.
That is a big if, my friend and to demonstrate that, just two weeks ago, China placed a firm order with Westinghouse for four AP-1000 plants. If the Chinese thought the PBR was a slam dunk, they wouldn't be committing billions to a US company for Light Water technology.
And is is false to say we aren't studying this. INEL, the DoE, MIT and Westinghouse all have research and development programs on the exact design the Chinese are using for their demo plant. The jury is still out. Maybe it will be great, but when scaling things up in size, things seldom "go as planned".
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