Islamic militants arrested last week on charges of plotting a major terrorist bombing were caught by police near Australia's only nuclear reactor last year and underwent "jihad training" at outback camps west of Sydney, police alleged in documents released yesterday.
A police fact sheet submitted in court here also alleged that the spiritual leader of the 18 Muslims arrested in Sydney and Melbourne urged his followers to unleash "maximum damage" as part of a holy war.
The 20-page document, tendered in court on Friday but not released to the public until yesterday, said three of the 18 had been stopped by police for acting suspiciously near the Lucas Heights research reactor in suburban Sydney.
The men said they were in the area to ride a trail bike that was in the back of their car, but when questioned separately gave differing accounts of their activities, police said.
Police later found that a lock on a gate to a reservoir on the grounds of the facility had recently been cut, the document said.
The government's Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), which operates the Sydney reactor, played down any threat.
ANSTO issued a statement saying the area where the men's car was noticed "is regularly used by the public for trail bike riding and bushwalking" and that security agencies at the time did not see the trio as a threat. It also said the fencing that had been cut near the reservoir was hundreds of meters from the reactor and not part of the ANSTO facility.
Police and security agents detained the 18 before dawn on Nov. 8 in the country's biggest counterterrorism operation.
All were Australian-born or naturalized citizens. Officials accused them of plotting a "catastrophic" act of terrorism, although no precise targets were alleged.
The arrests heightened security fears across Australia and sparked an extraordinary terrorism alert yesterday in the third largest city, Brisbane.
Threat halts transit
Authorities in the east coast city announced in mid-afternoon that all public buses and trains would unload their passengers for 30 minutes during the evening rush hour due to three anonymous telephone threats.
Local officials said they ordered the "overly cautious" reaction due to heightened security concerns following the arrests in Sydney and Melbourne.
The 30-minute transport shutdown went off without incident and the threats appeared to have been a hoax.
The 18 detained suspects have been charged with membership in a terrorist organization and/or stockpiling explosives components in preparation for a terrorist act.
In the list of allegations released yesterday, police said they were linked to an extremist group led by a Melbourne Muslim cleric, Abdul Nacer Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr, who was among those detained.
"Benbrika is a Muslim extremist and has publicly declared his support of a violent jihad," it said, adding that the cleric had "a core group of followers in Melbourne who are associated with the persons of interest in Sydney."
Police quoted Benbrika as telling some of the suspects during a meeting in February that if they wanted to "die for jihad, we have to have maximum damage."
"Damage their buildings, everything. Damage their lives to show them," he allegedly said, in statements obtained through electronic eavesdropping. "In this we'll have to be careful."
Training
Six of the Sydney suspects allegedly underwent military-style training early this year at two properties near Bourke in the far west of New South Wales state, the report said.
"Police allege that these camping and hunting trips are part of the jihad training being undertaken by this group," it said. "These trips are consistent with the usual modus operandi of terrorists prior to attacks."
Police also said they found large quantities of detonators and various chemicals used to make explosives during searches of the suspects' homes. They also allegedly found guns, numerous mobile phones, backpacks, latex gloves, videos on jihad and a computer memory stick containing instructions in Arabic on how to make explosives using household chemicals.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS