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FBI Warns of Potential Terror Attacks The FBI and Department of Homeland Security today issued an analytical "note" to U.S. law-enforcement officials cautioning that al-Qaida terrorists have in the past expressed interest in attacking public buildings using a dozen suicide bombers each carrying 20 kilograms of explosives. Authors with the U.S. Office of Intelligence and Analysis added that they have "no credible or specific information that terrorists are planning operations against public buildings in the United States." The FBI and DHS analysts said they were releasing the note because "it is important for local authorities and building owners and...

Accused terror suspect Jack Thomas heard Osama bin Laden tell an al-Qaeda training camp before the September 11 attacks that "something big was going to happen," a Melbourne court heard on Wednesday. Former Melbourne taxi driver Joseph Terrence Thomas told ABC current affairs program Four Corners in 2005 that he did not know the al Farouk camp in Afghanistan he attended was an al-Qaeda training camp. In the unedited version of the Four Corners interview played to a Victorian Supreme Court jury on Wednesday, Thomas, 35, says he travelled to Afghanistan to help the country get back on its feet...

Jack Thomas's freedom is a victory for our enemies THAT Jack Thomas has had his terrorism conviction quashed by a court will please those who wish to see the law used as a weapon in the service of their ideological objections to the national defence effort in the war on terror. But it is a defeat for common sense and Australia's national security. And al-Qa'ida and its allies will interpret it as showing that Australia is intellectually enervated and incapable of understanding how serious the terror threat is. It is easy to argue that the quashing of Mr Thomas's conviction...

MELBOURNE man Jack Thomas could face up to 25 years in jail after being found guilty of accepting cash from terror group al-Qaida. The 32-year-old father of three was behind bars last night after being the first person charged and convicted under Australia's updated anti-terrorism laws. Thomas was also found guilty by a Supreme Court jury yesterday of falsifying his passport. However, the jurors cleared Thomas of accusations he planned to become an Australian sleeper agent for Osama bin Laden. After four days of deliberations, the jury found Thomas not guilty of the two more serious charges of providing support...

MELBOURNE terrorist suspect "Jihad" Jack Thomas was in a precarious mental state ahead of his second bid for bail tomorrow, his lawyer said today. Joseph Terrence Thomas, 31, also known as Jack, was arrested during a raid by counter-terrorism police at his Werribee home in Melbourne's western suburbs last November. The former taxi driver and Muslim convert faces charges of receiving financial support from al-Qaeda, providing al-Qaeda with resources or support to help them carry out a terrorist act and having a false passport. He was refused bail in the Victorian Supreme Court in December. Today, his lawyer Rob Stary...

A MAGISTRATE has refused a bail application by Melbourne terror suspect "Jihad" Jack Thomas. Melbourne Magistrates' Court was told the former taxi driver and Muslim convert trained with the terrorist organisation al-Qaeda in Afghanistan before the September 11 attacks. The court also has been told that its leader, Osama bin Laden, wanted someone to conduct surveillance operations in Australia. Joseph Terrence Thomas, 31, was arrested last Thursday by officers from the Australian Federal Police and Victoria Police joint counter terrorism team at his Werribee home, in Melbourne's western suburbs. Thomas is charged with receiving financial support from al-Qaeda, providing al-Qaeda...

A man appeared in the Melbourne Magistrate's Court this afternoon charged with assisting the al-Qaeda terrorist group.   Jack Thomas, 31, also known as "Jihad Jack", is charged with two new counter terrorism offences - receiving funds from a terrorist organisation and providing support for a terrorist organisation. It is the first time the offences have been applied in Australia since new counter terrorism laws were introduced in 2002, the AFP said in a statement today.Thomas also faces charges for possessing a false passport.Thomas kept his head bowed throughout the short appearance. Defence counsel Lex Lasry QC said he would...

TERROR suspect Jack "Jihad" Thomas, arrested this week by police in Pakistan, has close links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida network, according to a senior Pakistani official. "This guy was in touch with al-Qa'ida operatives who have managed to sneak into Karachi. He's in league with them and was in close touch with them," the unnamed official said yesterday. But Rob Stary, the Melbourne lawyer retained by Mr Thomas's family, said there was no evidence against his client and urged the Australian Government to intervene. "They cannot sit back passively to allow one of their citizens to remain or be...

JACK "Jihad" Thomas was arrested in Pakistan 11 days ago but Australian authorities, who had been chasing him since September 2001, yesterday still did not know where he was. As family and friends described the 29-year-old as a gentle man devoted to his religion, a spokesman for the Australian High Commission in Islamabad said consular officials had not yet had access to him. And they had not yet found out where he was being held following his arrest on January 4 on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda. "We have put in a request for access and are awaiting a response,"...