Australian police have arrested four people accused of planning what would have been the country’s worst ever terrorist attack. The group are allegedly members of the radical Islamist al-Shabaab group, and are believed to have been plotting a suicide attack at an army barracks in Sydney.

Officers swooped on houses in the Melbourne area early this morning and arrested four men in their 20s of Somali and Lebanese descent. Two of them had travelled to Somalia and trained with al Shabaab.

Acting chief commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, Tony Negus, said: “The alleged offenders were prepared to inflict a sustained attack on military personnel until they themselves were killed.

“The men’s intention was to go into these army barracks and to kill as many people as possible… This would have been, if it had been able to be carried out, the most serious attack on Australian soil.”

Little known
Journalist Cameron Stewart, who broke the story, said little is known about the four men who were arrested other than that they are taxi drivers and construction workers.

“The investigators believe they don’t really have a very solid understanding about the background to the religious crusade or the politics of Somalia. So it really does seem to be a group that has been seduced by al-Shabaab, which markets itself very much as a global jihadist group and is very successful at obtaining foreign fighters.”
 

Militant Islam
Al-Shabaab, which means “youth” in Arabic, follows a strict interpretation of Islam and wants to introduce Sharia law in Somalia.

The Somali government recently said al-Shabaab has recruited thousands of foreigners, some of whom have taken up leadership positions. Last month an American recruit was killed in the capital Mogadishu.

No significant threat
Security analysts do not believe Australia has a significant terrorism problem despite a number of high profile cases in recent years. There was a major scandal in 2007 when an Indian doctor, Mohamed Haneef, was arrested for his alleged role in a UK terror plot. After being held in solitary confinement for nearly a month he was later released and all charges against him were dropped. Mr Haneef later mounted a legal challenge against the Australian government, but it has not apoligised for its mishandling of the case.

Cameron Stewart says today’s arrests are far more significant:

“What we’ve already seen in court today suggests there is a lot more evidence. I’d also hope the police in Australia might have learned some lessons from that terrible case of Mohammed Haneef, which was bungled and very clumsy.

“I think they are much more careful now to make sure they have substantial evidence before they move in, because they certainly couldn’t afford to make another mistake like that.”

Listen to an interview with Cameron Stewart, Associate Editor of The Australian newspaper: