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Tuesday, August 04, 2009
SOMALI community leaders say they warned authorities for years about possible terrorist cells operating in Melbourne but their warnings fell on deaf ears.
The claim came after one man faced court and four others were still being questioned late on Tuesday night over an alleged suicide plot to kill Australian soldiers.
Police said it would have been the deadliest terrorist attack on Australian soil.
Australian Federal Police acting Chief Commissioner Tony Negus said the men were allegedly planning a suicide shoot-out with automatic weapons at Holsworthy army base in Sydney.
"The men's intention was to actually go into the army barracks and to kill as many soldiers as they could before they themselves were killed," Mr Negus said. "Potentially this would have been, if it had been able to be carried out, the most serious terrorist attack on Australian soil."
He said investigators believed the men had links to a north African terrorist group, al-Shabaab, which has links to al-Qaida.
Victorian police, AFP officers and ASIO agents raided 19 properties across Melbourne and regional Victoria before dawn.
Nayef El Sayed, 25, from Glenroy, appeared in Melbourne Magistrates' Court charged with conspiring with four men and other unknown people to prepare an armed attack on Holsworthy base for several thousand troops.
He refused to stand when asked by a magistrate.
Mr El Sayed said through his lawyer he stood for no man other than his own God.
Three other suspects - Saney Edow Aweys, Yacqub Khayre and Abdirahman Ahmed - appeared in court as police requested more time to interview them.
Police also were interviewing a fifth man, a 33-year-old who is already in custody in relation to other matters, the court heard.
Melbourne Magistrates' Court was told the alleged cell had sought the blessing of an Islamic sheik for the attack.
"We believe that Abdirahman Ahmed was seeking a fatwah, and that fatwah could have assisted the group in committing the act," AFP agent Niranjan Jirasinha told the court.
"There were several seeking it, but he was one."
It was alleged telephone conversations and text messages were exchanged between members of the cell, with one telling another he had strolled around Holsworthy army base and it was easy to enter.
Magistrate Peter Reardon remanded Mr El Sayed in custody to reappear in court on October 26. He granted police an extra eight hours to question the other men. If charged, they will appear before Mr Reardon on Wednesday.
Somali Community in Victoria spokesman Abdurahman Osman said he had raised the prospect of a terrorist attack in Australia at least 10 times over the past three years because of the activities of al-Shabaab around the world.
And Islamic scholar and Sydney Somali community leader Dr Herse Hilole said he warned the Federal Government two years ago.
"The response at the beginning was good but the current government of Australia . . . seems that they did not take this seriously," he said.
The Islamic Council of Victoria is calling for calm amid fears of a backlash.
"The overwhelming majority of Australian Muslims unequivocally condemn all forms of terrorism," vice-president Shereen Hassan said.
Somalia Advocacy Action group spokesman Mohamed Baaruud said the community was in shock.
"Our community came to Australia about 17 years ago when the civil war started in Somalia and it took us a long time to recover from the trauma that we have experienced in our country of origin and start a new life here in Australia," he said.
- with Geraldine Mitchell and Paul Anderson