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Eleven Melbourne men accused of plotting a terrorist attack in Australia were committed Friday to stand trial. The 11 were among 13 picked up in Melbourne in November over what police said was a 'significant threat' to Australia. Committal hearings for the remaining two are to be held at a later date. The men are all followers of Algerian-born Abdul Nacer Benbrika, a radical Melbourne cleric who also had acolytes in Sydney, eight of whom were arrested at the same time. The 11 are charged with being members of a terrorist organization, and some are charged with funding a terrorist...

The photographs show the 21-year-old on the shoulders of an unidentified friend and the pair arm-in-arm. Melbourne Magistrates Court heard the photos formed part of a package sent anonymously to Australian Federal Police in March last year. It is believed they were taken during an overseas trip made by Joud to Lebanon in 2002.

TERRORISM suspects hoarded computer how-to guides on making explosives and articles about al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden and jihad, a court heard yesterday. Aimen Joud, 21, also had graphic video footage of the execution and decapitation of a man said to have come from Chechnya in 1998, Melbourne Magistrates' Court was told. Federal police found the manuals on terrorism and militant Islam when searching the homes of Mr Joud and Shane Kent, 29, in September 2004. Sen-Constable Paul Madden told the court one handbook, known as the Vortex Cookbook, was later shown to the group's alleged spiritual leader, Abdul Nacer Benbrika....

SO it wasn't a political stunt. It isn't about Iraq. And the threat of Islamist terror right here is more real than many pretend. How real? If the police are right, they have saved scores of you from being blown up -- as people in Madrid and London were blown up. As NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney put it, the arrest yesterday of 17 Muslim men disrupted "the final stages of a large-scale terrorist attack". He said explosive material had already been collected. Yet only last week, Prime Minister John Howard was pilloried by many for having warned of an...

TWO men accused of being members of a terrorist organisation allegedly discussed whether Prime Minister John Howard and his family should be killed as payback for the deaths of innocent Muslims, a Melbourne court has been told. The allegation was made at the second day of a bail hearing for Abdulla Merhi, 20, of Fawkner, and Hany Taha, 31, of Hadfield, at the Melbourne Magistrates' Court. They are among 10 men charged with being members of a terrorist organisation last month. Eight of the men also have been charged with financing a terrorist organisation. The alleged leader of the group,...

SYDNEY, Australia - Three recently arrested terror suspects had been stopped and questioned by police last December near Australia's only nuclear reactor, according to a police document released Monday. The document also outlined what it said were plans by the men to stockpile chemicals for making explosives and that they "obtained extremist advice and guidance" from a firebrand cleric arrested along with them. The three men arrested near the nuclear reactor were among 18 terror suspects arrested in Sydney and Melbourne last week and accused of plotting to carry out a "catastrophic" attack in Australia. The police document identifies the...