Melbourne, Australia – Police have arrested a number of suspected terrorists during raids across Melbourne.
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Police swooped about 4.30am, executing 19 warrants on homes in Glenroy, Carlton, Meadow Heights, Roxburgh Park, Broadmeadows, Westmeadows, Preston, Epping and Colac.
The raids came after a suicide bomb plot by suspected Islamic extremists in Melbourne was uncovered. The group is thought to be linked to extremists in Somalia.
Police believe the group was planning to launch an attack on an Australian army base, possibly in Victoria.
Victoria has four army bases – in Albury-Wodonga, Puckapunyal, Watsonia and Broadmeadows – as well as three RAAF bases and a Navy base at Crib Point.
Emily Howard, 21, lives about four doors away from where one of the warrants was executed in View St, Glenroy.
She said it was scary to think something like this could be happening in her own street.
The mass counter-terrorism operation, the second largest ever in Australia, involved the Australian Federal Police, Victoria and NSW Police, the NSW Crime Commission and the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation.
At least 400 officers were involved in the raid.
A spokesman for Premier John Brumby said: “The Premier has received a preliminary briefing. The Government will await further advice before commenting further.”
The members of the group had been discovered carrying out surveillance on the Holsworthy Barracks in Western Sydney.
The group is reportedly inspired by the Somalia-based terrorist movement al-Shabaab, with two Melbourne members thought to have travelled to Somalia to train with the al-Qaida aligned terror group.
Al-Shabaab, which is using suicide bombers and jihadist fighters in an attempt to overthrow the Somali government, seeks to impose a pure, hardline form of Islam, and sees the West as its enemy.
It has been declared a terrorist organisation by the US and it has close links with al-Qaida leaders, including Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, an architect of the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in which 223 people died.
The suspects include Australians of Somali and Lebanese decent, most of whom are labourers employed in Melbourne’s construction industry, or taxi drivers.
Al-Shabaab is currently searching for jihadist recruits around the world, including in Australia.
Authorities fear that Australian Muslims who travel to Somalia to fight for al-Shabaab could return to Australia as sleeper agents for future attacks in this country.
Living here in the in North America wrapped in my bubble; I always tought the grass is greener on the other side.
I certainly don’t want to “racially profile” anyone, but who do you suppose the police arrested? Anyone think it was some 65 year old grannies? Maybe it’s time for all countries to pay a little more attention to who they let in – and base that decision on a particular profile!