Rilek1Corner

Tag: radicals

  • K Shanmugam: Terrorist Threat In Singapore’s Backyard Is Growing

    K Shanmugam: Terrorist Threat In Singapore’s Backyard Is Growing

    With Islamic State (IS) losing ground in Iraq and Syria, Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam on Tuesday (April 4) underscored the growing terrorist threat in Singapore’s backyard, and warned that an area less than a four-hour flight away is becoming a sanctuary for returning fighters from the Middle East and where attacks could be launched on South-east Asia. And he stressed that this could become a problem not just for the region but for the rest of the world as well.

    “The potential locus of the threat could move to Southern Philippines, which is becoming an area that is difficult to control, despite the best efforts of the government … It can be a place where would-be terrorists, and those who are radicalised from this region, can go to get trained,” said Mr Shanmugam, who was speaking at an international exhibition on homeland security held at Marina Bay Sands.

    “Arms seem to move fairly easily into that region, and from there as a base, they can spread out again to attack this region. So, newly radicalised, would-be fighters, battle-hardened, veterans from the Middle East, and people who are released from prisons, who have not yet been rehabilitated, can all gravitate there. At the right time and opportunity, they may well attack.”

    In August last year, Mr Ahmad El-Muhammady, an adviser to the Royal Malaysia Police on terrorist detainees, said the area controlled by IS is shrinking, and in order to maintain support among its fighters, the terrorist organisation is growing its presence in “the second ring of conflict, that is their neighbouring countries, or the third ring of conflict, that is South-east Asia”.

    Referring to Mr Ahmad’s remarks, Mr Shanmugam reiterated that the people who come back to the region will be “hardened ideologues, hardened fighters and willing to give up their lives”. He added: “This region is not very far from any other region, so it doesn’t take very long to get anywhere else. It’s not a local problem, it’s not a regional problem. It’s a problem for all of us.”

    Mr Shanmugam noted that South-east Asia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, has been of “considerable interest” to IS, which has set up a Malay Archipelago Unit in Syria and Iraq, called Katibah Nusantara. The unit is actively reaching out to the Malay-speaking population in this region, using propaganda videos and newspapers in Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malayu to recruit new members.

    Across the Causeway, Malaysia has made several arrests of IS supporters in recent months. IS’ worldview consists of “Malaysia, Indonesia and obviously Singapore, which is in the middle of it, Southern Philippines, as part of a larger caliphate ruled by a caliph, it cannot be by a system of governance, governed by anything other than the rule of God”, Mr Shanmugam said.

    “So there cannot be elections, there cannot be a democratic system. If you have instability along these lines, in this region, it leads up to the rest of South-east Asia and all the way to China, and of course South Asia. So it’s a pan-Asian problem, and given the connectivity, no region is really very far from any other region. Then that is an issue for the rest of the world as well, with a strong centre here.”

    Mr Shanmugam also spoke on the changing nature of terror attacks. Citing recent incidents in Nice, Berlin and London, he noted that “anything can become a weapon” today. Referring to the case of a young man who was nabbed after he wanted to “take a knife and kill our President and Prime Minister”, Mr Shanmugam noted that Singapore’s laws allow the authorities to “move in very early and we can detain people”. “A terror attack can take place any time, any place, and they can attack and impact on anyone — with a possibility of a loss of lives, within a short period of time, with little or no warning,” he said.

    However, he stressed that terrorists will not prevail. “Because I think the nature of human beings is that we look for progress, and I do not believe that any culture, or system, or people or civilisation can be held back … progress is inevitable, a better life is inevitable,” he said.

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

     

  • The Jihadi Who Turned To Jesus

    The Jihadi Who Turned To Jesus

    When 22 Christian refugees gathered in the basement of an apartment in Istanbul early on a recent Sunday afternoon, it was quickly clear that this was no ordinary prayer meeting. Several of them had Islamic names. There was a Jihad, an Abdelrahman and even a couple of Mohammads. Strangest of all, they jokingly referred to their host — one of the two Mohammads — as an irhabi. A terrorist.

    If Bashir Mohammad took the joke well, it was because there was once some truth to it. Today, Mohammad, 25, has a cross on his wall and invites other recent converts to weekly Bible readings in his purple-walled living room. Less than four years ago, however, he says he fought on the front lines of the Syrian civil war for the Nusra Front, an offshoot of al-Qaida. He is, he says, a jihadi who turned to Jesus.

    It is a transition that has surprised everyone, not least of all himself. Four years ago, Mohammad tells me, “Frankly I would have slaughtered anyone who suggested it.” Not only have his beliefs changed, but his temperament has, too. Today, his wife, Hevin Rashid, confirms, with a hint of understatement, that he is “much better to be around”.

    The conversion of Muslim refugees to Christianity is not a new phenomenon, particularly in majority-Christian countries. Converts sometimes stand accused of trying to enhance their chances of asylum by making it dangerous to deport them back to places with a history of Islamist persecution.

    Mohammad’s particular experience, however, does not fit easily into this narrative. He lives in a majority-Muslim country, has little interest in seeking asylum in the West and treads an unlikely path followed by few former jihadis.

    His is a story that began in a Kurdish part of northern Syria, Afrin, where he grew up in a Muslim family. Mohammad flirted with extremism in his teens. His cousin took him to hear jihadi preachers as a 15-year-old, and he adhered to some of the most extreme interpretations of Islam, “even the ones you haven’t heard of”. But when war broke out in Syria, after the country’s 2011 uprising, Mohammad initially joined the secular Kurdish forces in their fight for autonomy.

    Mohammad’s subsequent ideological journey rarely made complete sense. But by his account, he became traumatised by the deaths he witnessed on the front line, which in turn re-energised his interest in the extremist versions of Islam that he had learned about as a teenager.

    “When I saw all these dead bodies,” he said, “it made me believe all these things they said in the lectures. It made me seek the greatness of religion.” Or, at least, his violent interpretations of that religion.

    When a friend invited him to defect in summer 2012 to the Nusra Front, a group that seeks to establish an extremist state, Mohammad readily agreed. As a Nusra fighter, he continued to witness extreme brutality. His colleagues executed several captives by crushing them with a bulldozer. Another prisoner was forced to drink several litres of water after his genitals were tied shut with string.

    This time, however, Nusra’s propaganda made the violence seem tolerable. “They used to tell us these people were the enemies of God,” Mohammad said, “and so I looked on these executions positively.”

    When I first met Mohammad, in his basement, I guessed at none of this. In fact, I was there to observe one of his guests, a Yazidi who had converted two months earlier. Mohammad seemed to be the group’s glue and behaved as though he had been born and bred a Christian.

    It was Mohammad who led the first prayers and chants. (“People who have fled their homes,” began one, “God bring them safety.”) And it was he who distributed the coffee afterward. His calm poise was jogged only when his guests jokingly referred to him as the irhabi, a sobriquet that sent a sheepish smile across his youthful face.

    In his previous life, Mohammad said, he was an angry man whose temper frightened his relatives. When he briefly returned home for his family’s Kurdish New Year celebrations in March 2013, Mohammad was repulsed by what he saw as blasphemous activities, whose origins lay outside the Islamic tradition.

    Indoctrinated by his months with Nusra, he spent his leave in isolation with Rashid, who was then his fiancée. Both she and his parents tried to persuade him not to return to the front line, but he ignored them.

    But back at the front, Mohammad finally began to question Nusra’s motives. Scanning government territory through his binoculars, he says he saw Syrian government soldiers executing a line of prisoners with a bulldozer and concluded there was little difference between their behaviour and that of his colleagues.

    Disenchanted, he risked execution himself by deserting Nusra, and returning home to Afrin. “I went to Nusra in search of my God,” he said. “But after I saw Muslims killing Muslims, I realised there was something wrong.”

    The next year, he and his wife fled the war entirely, leaving for Istanbul and joining around 2.5 million other Syrians in exile in Turkey. Still a zealous Muslim, Mohammad prayed so loudly that his upstairs neighbours complained. “They used to ask me, ‘When are you going to turn into a prophet’?” He still required Rashid to cover her hair and neck, and planned for her to wear a niqab, or full-face covering.

    It was nevertheless Rashid herself who unwittingly prompted her husband’s rejection of Islam. In early 2015, she fell seriously ill. As her health worsened, Mohammad described her condition in a phone call with his cousin Ahmad — the same cousin who had taken him to jihadi lectures as a teenager. Ahmad was now living in Canada and, in a move that shocked Mohammad, had converted to Christianity.

    An enthusiastic convert, Ahmad asked Mohammad to place his telephone close to Rashid, so that his prayer group could sing and pray for her health. Horrified, Mohammad initially refused, since he had been taught to find Christianity repellent. But he was also desperate, and eventually he gave in.

    When Rashid improved within a few days, Mohammad ascribed it to his cousin’s intervention. Intrigued, he then began to entertain a sacrilegious thought. He asked his cousin to recommend a Christian preacher in Istanbul who might introduce him to the religion. He was put in touch with Eimad Brim, a missionary from an evangelical group based in Jordan called the Good Shepherd, who agreed to meet with him.

    Brim said Mohammad was quickly persuaded by the benefits of a conversion, despite the lethal danger in which it would place him. “It was Bashir who was looking for Eimad,” said Brim, who also confirmed other parts of Mohammad’s narrative. “It was easy.”

    Exactly why he sought solace in Christianity, rather than a more mainstream version of Islam, no one can quite explain. Reading the Bible, Mohammad said, made him calmer than reading the Quran. The churches he attended made him feel more welcome than the neighbourhood mosques. In his personal view, Christian prayers were more generous than Muslim ones. But these are subjective claims, and many would reject the characterisation of Islam as a less benign religion, much as they would reject Nusra’s extremist interpretation of it.

    For Mohammad and Rashid, perhaps it was their dreams that sealed their conversion. As the couple began to consider leaving Islam, Rashid said she dreamed of a biblical figure who used heavenly powers to divide the waters of the sea, which Mohammad interpreted as a sign of encouragement from Jesus. Then, Mohammad himself dreamed Jesus had given him some chickpeas. The pair felt loved.

    “There’s a big gap between the god I used to worship and the one I worship now,” Mohammad said. “We used to worship in fear. Now everything has changed.”

    For Mohammad, all this has nevertheless come at a high price. His rejection of Islam makes him a target for his fundamentalist former allies and he fears they will one day catch up with him. If they do, however, he reckons he now has the greatest protection of all.

    “I trust,” he says, “in God”.

     

    Source: www.nytimes.com

  • Terrorist Khalid Masood: A ‘Nice Guy’ Turned Extremist

    Terrorist Khalid Masood: A ‘Nice Guy’ Turned Extremist

    The man who mowed down pedestrians and stabbed a policeman in Wednesday’s deadly assault outside Britain’s parliament has been identified by police as 52-year-old former convict Khalid Masood.

    Known by “a number of aliases”, London’s Metropolitan Police said he had been convicted for a string of offences but none of them terror-related.

    Born on Christmas Day 1964 in Kent in southeast England, Masood had been living in the West Midlands where armed police have staged several raids since the attack, storming properties in the city of Birmingham.

    The police confirmed he was a British citizen.

    He was brought up by a single parent in the town of Rye, on the southern English coast, according to The Times.

    Over the course of two decades, Masood chalked up a range of convictions for assault, grievous bodily harm, possession of offensive weapons and public order offences, police said, with the incidents taking place between 1983 and 2003.

    Prime Minister Theresa May said he was once investigated by the intelligence service MI5 “in relation to concerns about violent extremism”.

    But Masood had never been convicted of terrorism offences and “was not the subject of any investigations,” the police said, noting there was “no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack”.

    At 52, his age has been highlighted by commentators as unusual, with most Islamist extremists behind similar attacks far younger.

    Although the police believe Masood acted alone, the Islamic State group claimed he was one of its “soldiers” acting on a call to target countries fighting the jihadists in Iraq and Syria.

    ‘A NICE GUY’

    Masood rented the car used in the attack from the Solihull branch of Enterprise, on the outskirts of Birmingham, the company confirmed in a statement.

    According to the BBC, he told the car rental company that he was a teacher.

    A spokeswoman for Britain’s education ministry told AFP Masood was not a qualified teacher and had therefore not taught in any state schools.

    The Sun tabloid said Masood stayed in a hotel on the outskirts of Brighton, a seaside city south of London, on the night before the attack.

    London’s Metropolitan Police would not confirm the newspaper’s report that investigators went to the hotel following the attack after finding a receipt in the hire car.

    British media described Masood as a Muslim convert, with one source telling Sky News he was a “very religious, well-spoken man”.

    “You couldn’t go to his home in Birmingham on Friday because he would be at prayer,” said the source, who Sky said met Masood in a professional capacity.

    “He was a nice guy. I used to see him outside doing his garden,” Iwona Romek, a former neighbour of his told the Birmingham Mail.

    “He had a wife, a young Asian woman and a small child who went to school,” she said. Other media have reported that he was a married father-of-three.

    Romek said the family had abruptly moved out of their house in Winson Green, a neighbourhood in western Birmingham, around Christmas without saying goodbye.

    Romek said she could not imagine him carrying out an attack, adding: “Now I’m scared that someone like that was living close to me”.

    More recently Masood may have been living in a flat next to a Persian restaurant and a pizza parlour in the upmarket Edgbaston neighbourhood, according to reports.

    One neighbour at that address told The Telegraph newspaper they were fearful after the day’s events: “It’s left me so scared and I don’t know what to tell the children. He seemed like a normal calm and kind family man, always with a smile on his face.”

    Following an armed raid on the property overnight, a man working in a shop nearby told the Press Association simply: “The man from London lived here”.

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

  • ISIS Gunakan “Crowdsourcing” Untuk Perluas Rangkaian Ideologi Radikal

    ISIS Gunakan “Crowdsourcing” Untuk Perluas Rangkaian Ideologi Radikal

    BERITAMediacorp:  Pasukan-pasukan anti-pengganasan kini berdepan dengan cabaran-cabaran serius untuk membanteras ISIS, khususnya untuk mengenal pasti sama ada satu-satu serangan pengganasan itu dilancarkan oleh penyerang secara sendirian atau berkumpulan. Menurut pengamatan Penganalisis Kanan Sekolah Pengajian Antarabangsa S. Rajaratnam (RSIS), Syed Huzaifah Alkaff, ISIS kini memanfaatkan kumpulan individu radikal selepas ditentang hebat di Iraq dan Syria. Dengan ini, ISIS seolah-olah menyatukan penyerang sendirian dan anggota mereka sendiri dalam percubaan menjadi kumpulan pengganas yang dominan. Artikel KOMENTAR ini disumbangan Syed Huzaifah Alkaff kepada BERITAMediacorp:

    ISIS kini memanfaatkan sumber kumpulan individu yang lebih besar atau ‘crowdsourcing’ untuk serangan-serangan tempatan bagi menebus kerugian yang dialaminya di Timur Tengah. Ini merupakan jambatan utama strategi kumpulan itu untuk memperluas rangkaian radikalnya serta mencetuskan keganasan global.

    ISIS sejauh ini berstruktur hierarki dari segi arahan dalaman di Iraq dan Syria dan pengurusan wilayah-wilayahnya. Kumpulan itu juga mempunyai struktur pangkat rendah yang secara langsung menyelia kegiatan-kegiatan anggotanya. Namun ia sekarang ini mendapatkan penyerang bersendirian untuk melakukan keganasan atas namanya.

    Ternyata walaupun ini bercanggah, pendekatan hierarki dan langkah memanfaatkan sumber kumpulan individu yang lebih besar saling melengkapi.

    Kawalan pusat ISIS yang kian melemah disebabkan serangan-serangan ke atas mereka akan diperkuatkan menerusi strategi memanfaatkan sumber kumpulan individu yang lebih besar.

    Strategi sedemikian sesuai dengan objektif ISIS sekarang. Strategi itu boleh bergantung kepada rangkaian sokongan ISIS yang merentasi negara bagi memperolehi khidmat yang diperlukan untuk mencetuskan keganasan. Tambahan pula, mendapatkan sumber menerusi cara itu membolehkan ISIS membahagikan kerja antara para penyokongnya bagi mencapai kesan yang lebih menyeluruh.

    ISIS dengan mudah boleh mengeksploitasi rangkaiannya dengan memanfaatkan masyarakat radikal bagi meneruskan agendanya. Masyarakat radikal ialah yang berkongsi perspektif dan objektif ISIS, yang bersetuju dengan bentuk-bentuk keganasan tertentu dan juga yang (sekurang-kurangnya pada satu tahap) menyokong kumpulan pengganas itu baik dari segi moral mahupun logistik.

    (Gambar: REUTERS/Stringer)

    RANGKA KERJA SERANGAN ISIS

    Dalam satu rencana yang diterbitkan dalam majalah ISIS, Rumiyah, pada bulan Januari lalu kumpulan itu mengarahkan secara terperinci, kepada para penyokongnya, cara-cara melancarkan serangan. Ini termasuk bagaimana meninggalkan bukti di tempat kejadian supaya ISIS boleh mendakwa bertanggungjawab.

    Selain senjata tentera, ISIS juga menggalak penggunaan senjata ringan seperti pisau dalam melancarkan serangan pengganas. Ini mempermudahkan laluan bagi para “aktivis pengganasan” kumpulan itu untuk memperolehi senjata.

    Menyusuli kegagalan kumpulan militan itu sejak beberapa bulan kebelakangan ini, ia bukan sesuatu yang mengejutkan untuk melihat bagaimana ISIS mengubah strateginya agar ia kekal relevan. Langkah ISIS memanfaatkan sumber kumpulan individu yang lebih besar sekaligus akan memperkukuh reputasi kumpulan itu sebagai pertubuhan pengganasan yang dominan di peringkat antarabangsa.

    Strategi itu boleh terbukti berkesan kerana anggotanya tidak lagi terhad secara geografi dan boleh melancarkan serangan-serangan menjangkaui radius fizikal pusat ISIS. Lagipun, sasaran ISIS, senjata yang pelbagai dan masyarakat yang radikal wujud di mana-mana. Hakikatnya serangan-serangan pengganas yang ISIS akan mendakwa bertanggungjawab hanya menunggu masa untuk berlaku.

    Strategi konvensional ISIS adalah penggunaan taktik gerila dan perang yang tidak seimbang bagi melancarkan serangan-serangan pengganasan. Majalah Rumiyah menekankan taktik yang sama di samping memperkenalkan elemen ‘crowdsourcing’ bagi pengganasan dalam taktik ISIS.

    Majalah itu turut mengajar para penyokong ISIS bagaimana untuk berkomunikasi dengan kumpulan militan tersebut untuk mendakwa bertanggungjawab selepas serangan dilancarkan, lebih-lebih lagi jika serangan itu bukan diarahkan secara langsung oleh ISIS.

    Misalnya, meletakkan satu simbol yang ada kaitan dengan kumpulan tersebut – seperti bendera hitam ISIS – di tempat serangan dilancarkan. Dengan cara itu, ISIS dengan mudah memperolehi dan mengekalkan namanya menerusi para penyokong yang di luar daripada kumpulannya sendiri.

     (Gambar: AFP)

    SASARAN ISIS

    ISIS sebelum ini secara terang-terangan dan meluas mengisytiharkan dan memaklumkan sasarannya menerusi propagandanya. Analisis yang dilakukan ke atas beberapa penerbitan ISIS – Dabiq, Rumiyah dan An-Naba’ – dan juga corak kumpulan itu mendakwa bertanggungjawab ke atas serangan-serangan pengganasan menunjukkan empat ciri utama teras ISIS:

    – Tidak bertolak ansur terhadap agama lain: Ini jelas boleh dilihat pada serangan-serangan yang dilancarkan terhadap kuil-kuil, rumah ibadat serta tempat-tempat lain yang tidak menyokong nilai-nilai agama ISIS.

    – Diskriminasi sektarian: ISIS menerapkan sikap benci-membenci di kalangan Muslim dan masyarakat lain. Kumpulan itu menyasarkan hegemoni, dan memperolehi kuasa untuk menindas fahaman-fahaman lain agama dan masyarakat.

    – Anti-barat: ISIS sering menyalahkan kuasa Eropah-Amerika bagi kejatuhan kedudukan politik Islam khususnya sejak kejatuhan empayar Uthmaniyah. Retorik ini kemudian diburukkan lagi dengan rasa benci terhadap penyertaan negara Barat dalam mana-mana peperangan di Timur Tengah.

    – Pemerintah “Taghut” (melanggar undang-undang): ISIS mengutuk mana-mana pemerintah yang menentang kumpulan itu dan juga yang tidak mematuhi undang-undang Islam menurut cara ISIS. ISIS menyebarkan perspektif seolah-olah ia menjadi mangsa pemerintah seumpama itu kerana menghalang matlamatnya untuk mendirikan Khilafah Islam.

    Kesemua empat ciri itu secara keseluruhannya menjelaskan sasaran ISIS kepada para penyokongnya. Ini amat membimbangkan memandangkan sasaran-sasaran ISIS ini tersebar luas dan mudah didapati di negara-negara di merata dunia.

    (Gambar: AP)

    KESAN PENGGANASAN MENJANGKAUI ANGGOTA ISIS

    Memerangi ISIS kian mencabar. Strategi memanfaatkan masyarakat radikal menjangkaui anggotanya sendiri mengaburkan perbezaan antara penyerang bersendirian dengan keganasan yang dilancarkan secara berkumpulan.

    Penyerang juga tidak terhad pada arahan-arahan ISIS. Radikalisasi menerusi strategi ini juga mempercepat proses merubah individu-individu radikal kepada seorang pengganas. Anggota ISIS pula tidak lagi diperlukan untuk menyertainya sama ada di wilayah ISIS, Iraq atau Syria.

    Tambahan lagi, menyertai ISIS menerusi Bai’ah (ikrar setia) boleh dilakukan secara online. Ini mempermudahkan kumpulan itu mengelak kawalan keselamatan yang lebih ketat oleh pemerintah negara-negara lain.

    Ini menunjukkan fenomena yang semakin meningkat di mana para penyokongnya boleh melancarkan serangan di mana-mana dan pada bila masa saja tanpa arahan atau komunikasi secara langsung dengan pusat ISIS. Justeru, ini akan meningkatkan kadar pengambilan anggota ISIS.

    Masyarakat radikal juga mudah memperolehi senjata menyusuli pelbagai propaganda mengenai senjata buatan sendiri ataupun senjata lain secara amnya. Kempen ISIS sekarang iaitu menggunakan pisau sebagai senjata memudahkan mobilisasi “para aktivis pengganasan” untuk melancarkan serangan. Menerusi strategi ini, masyarakat yang radikal lebih mudah dikaitkan dengan identiti ISIS.

    (Gambar fail: AFP/HO/ALBARAKA NEWS)

    MASA AKAN DATANG

    Dengan adanya strategi memanfaatkan sumber kumpulan individu yang lebih besar untuk melancarkan serangan-serangan, tugas memerangi ISIS akan lebih mencabar. ISIS kini terdesak memerlukan sokongan dan tenaga manusia menyusuli kekalahan besar baik di dalam mahupun luar Iraq dan Syria.

    Oleh itu para penggubal dasar perlu menanggap sebarang tanda perubahan dalam pergerakan dan strategi ISIS. Khususnya bagi rantau Asia Tenggara, masyarakat-masyarakat berbilang agama dan kaum adalah tumpuan dalam rangka kerja serangan ISIS.

    Langkah-langkah untuk memelihara ‘fabrik’ sosial masyarakat di Asia Tenggara semakin penting memandangkan ISIS sedang mengembangkan masyarakat radikal dan memanfaatkannya.

    (Gambar: Syed Huzaifah Alkaff)

    MENGENAI PENULIS:

    Syed Huzaifah Othman Alkaff ialah Penganalisis Kanan di Pusat Antarabangsa bagi Kajian Keganasan Politik dan Pengganasan (ICPVTR), Sekolah Pengajian Antarabangsa S. Rajaratnam (RSIS).

    Source: http://berita.mediacorp.sg

  • 7 Held Over Melbourne Christmas Day Terrorist Plot

    7 Held Over Melbourne Christmas Day Terrorist Plot

    Police have disrupted a terrorist plot to detonate improvised explosive devices at locations in central Melbourne, possibly on Christmas Day, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says.

    Seven people were arrested overnight at properties in Flemington, Meadow Heights and Dallas in Melbourne over the alleged plot, which police said was inspired by the Islamic State (IS) group.

    Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews described the plot as an “act of evil”, while Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said police had seized “the makings of an improvised explosive device”.

    Speaking at a press conference today, Mr Turnbull said: “Overnight our police and security agencies have disrupted a very substantial terrorist plot.

    “Overnight, the Victoria Police, working with the Australian Federal Police and ASIO, have arrested seven persons, five of whom are still in custody, searched five premises and are continuing to search them.

    “What they have uncovered is a plot to explode improvised explosive devices in central Melbourne in the area of Federation Square, on or about Christmas Day.

    The raids were part of a counter-terrorism operation involving Victoria Police, the Australian Federal Police and ASIO.

    Commissioner Ashton said it was believed a number of people were intending to carry out an attack involving explosives and other weapons.

    “Over the last fortnight … we have had to conduct a criminal investigation relating to the formation of what we believe was a terrorist plot,” he said.

    Police believe the locations to be targeted include Federation Square, Flinders Street Station, and St Paul’s Cathedral.

    Commissioner Ashton said: “We believe [the plot] was going to involve an explosive event, the use of explosives, and we gathered evidence to support that.

    “There has also been evidence that we will lead around the possibility of an intention to use other weapons. That could include knives and/or a firearm.

    “Certainly these [people] are self-radicalised, we believe, but inspired by ISIS and ISIS propaganda.”

    A 24-year-old man from Meadow Heights, a 26-year-old man from Dallas, a 22-year-old man from Campbellfield, a 21-year-old man from Flemington and a 21-year-old man from Gladstone Park remain in police custody.

    A 20-year-old woman and a 26-year-old man, both from Meadow Heights, were released without charge.

    The five people in custody were expected to face court this afternoon, charged with acts in preparation of a terrorist event, Commissioner Ashton said.

    Commissioner Ashton said four of the five were Australian-born with a Lebanese background.

    “The age groups range between 20 and 24 or 25. There is another suspect in this matter who will be charged that was an Egyptian-born Australian citizen. All the others were Australian-born,” he said.

    Premier Daniel Andrews said there would be an increased police presence at large gatherings in Victoria over the Christmas period.

    Commissioner Ashton said he spoke to Cricket Australia about providing additional security at the MCG during the Boxing Day Test, which starts on Monday.

     

    Source: www.abc.net.au