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9-11-2005 Scotsman Australia terror link to 7 July attacks By Gethin Chamberlain Chief News Correspondent MEMBERS of a group accused of plotting a devastating bombing campaign in Australia trained with the same Pakistani terrorist network linked to the London bomb attacks on 7 July. At least two of the 17 men arrested in raids in Melbourne and Sydney are known to have trained at camps in Pakistan run by the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). The same group runs a religious school, or madrassa, outside Lahore, Pakistan, which is believed to have been visited by the London suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer. Shortly after the attacks on 7 July, Pakistani intelligence sources suggested that Tanweer may have been recruited during the visit and Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, voiced concern that some of Pakistan's madrassas were being used as training camps for Islamic militants. Two of the Australian suspects have also been linked to the LeT and al-Qaeda suspect Willy Brigitte, who was captured after French and Australian security services foiled a plot to bomb Australia two years ago. Australian authorities said yesterday they had prevented a catastrophic terror attack, and police said more arrests were likely. Officers seized chemicals, weapons, computers and backpacks. Police declined to identify possible targets, but there have been previous reports of suspects carrying out surveillance on stations, Sydney's opera house and harbour bridge, and the Melbourne Stock Exchange. Abdul Nacer Benbrika, a radical Muslim cleric, was charged yesterday with masterminding a the latest plot. Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr, is known in Australia as an enthusiastic supporter of Osama bin Laden and has said that although he is against the killing of innocent people, he could not discourage his students from travelling to Afghanistan or Pakistan to train in terrorist camps. Another suspect - who had previously appeared as a bit-part actor in the Australian soap opera Home and Away - was in a critical condition after being shot in the neck during an exchange of gunfire with police. A police officer suffered a minor hand injury. Ken Moroney, commissioner of New South Wales Police, said he was satisfied that officers had "disrupted what I would regard as the final stages of a large-scale terrorist attack ... in Australia". John Howard, the Australian prime minister, who last week warned of a possible imminent terror attack in the country, said there was still a risk. "This country has never been immune from a possible terrorist attack," he said. "That remains the situation today and it will be tomorrow." At initial court appearances yesterday, it was claimed that the men had intended to launch a holy war in Australia. Electronic surveillance apparently captured one of the men, Abdullah Merhi, discussing with Bakr whether it would be better to martyr himself in Australia or elsewhere in the world. Merhi wanted to carry out attacks to avenge the war in Iraq, police said. Mr Howard was a strong supporter of the US-led invasion of Iraq and still has hundreds of troops in the country. In court in Melbourne, the prosecutor, Richard Maidment, said the nine men who appeared there planned to kill "innocent men and women in Australia" and that they had been stockpiling chemicals like those used in the London Underground bombings. The chemical acetone was a key ingredient of the explosives used by the London bombers. Mr Maidment identified Bakr as the group's leader and said each group member had undergone military-style training at a rural camp north-east of Melbourne. Defence lawyer Adam Houda said the charges were a "scandalous political prosecution". "There's no evidence that terrorism was contemplated or being planned by any particular person at any particular time or at any particular place," he said. In Sydney, seven men are being held until a hearing on Friday on charges of preparing a terror act by manufacturing explosives. Australian police and intelligence services have long suspected that LeT is operating in the country. Earlier this year, they raided four homes in Melbourne after a ten-month investigation uncovered a plot to attack major landmarks. Mick Keelty, head of the Australian federal police, is reported to have said that some militants were known to have trained with terrorist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Two of the men arrested in Sydney are believed to have trained at paramilitary camps run by LeT, whose leader, Hafiz Saeed, believes that suicide bombing is the best form of holy war. Khaled Cheikho's attendance was disclosed during a Sydney court hearing earlier this year. The 32-year-old is believed to have visited the camp in 2001. The same witness also revealed that Moustafa Cheikho, 28, Khaled's nephew, attended the same camp the following year. While he was there, he was known as Abu Asad. He is understood to have trained with the French terrorist Willie Brigitte, according to information handed to US authorities by French police last year. The French said that as many as 3,000 people attended the camp for training in the use of weapons, explosives and tactics. Brigitte is currently in jail in France after French and Australian intelligence officers thwarted a planned attack on a number of Australian targets in 2003, including the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor. Another of the men arrested in Sydney, Abdul Rakib Hasan, is also believed to have arranged safe houses in Australia for Brigitte in 2003. Two other men who allegedly trained with LeT in Pakistan are already in custody in Australia awaiting trial. Faheem Khalid Lodhi, 34, denies planning to mount a terrorist attack in Sydney after returning from an LeT camp, and former airline baggage handler Bilal Khazal, 35, is accused of compiling a terrorist manual. LeT is based in Lahore, but in recent years it has expanded its operations into the United States and Britain. It has access to cash and weapons and close ties with al-Qaeda, Hamas and Jemaah Islamiyyah.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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