August 04, 2009

Australia Names 4 Suspects In Planned Attack On Holsworthy Army Base

Update on Terrorist Attack On Aussie Army Base Thwarted

The four are Nayaf El Sayed, Saney Aweys, Yacqub Khayre and Abdirahman Ahmed. Apparently they heart alQaeda linked Somali group al Shabaab. They liked using the telephone and kept in touch with each other through text messaging all of which led to their arrest.

Times

Nick Robinson, prosecuting, told the court that the men, named as Nayaf El Sayed, Saney Aweys, Yacqub Khayre and Abdirahman Ahmed, planned to arm themselves and enter the Holsworthy base to try to kill as many soldiers as possible.

"To become self-proclaimed martyrs?" Peter Reardon, the magistrate, asked.

"Yes," Mr Robinson replied.

Text messages uncovered by investigators were read out to the court, including one sent from another suspect on March 24 that read: "Can you give me the address of the Australian A and the name of the train station."

Mr Robinson said another text message had been sent from a pay phone on March 27 giving directions to the Holsworthy base from the train station.

He said that CCTV footage showed that the suspect had "attended" the Holsworthy base on March 28. The man then allegedly sent a text message which read: "I strolled around... it is easy to enter."....

Operation Neath was launched after police intercepted a phone call between an Australian-Lebanese man they had been monitoring, and a Somali living in Melbourne, in which the Lebanese asked for help to travel to Somalia to fight with al-Shabaab, The Australian reported.

The Lebanese man’s calls had been monitored after he came to the attention of the authorities for espousing extremist views at his local mosque in Melbourne. Over the following months the police became increasingly concerned as the group discussed ways in which they could obtain weaponry and planned to seek a religious ruling supporting an attack on Holsworthy barracks.

Extremist views at a local mosque? Well color me surprised - not!

Slide show from the Times. Image #8 is a suspect but unfortunately he has covered his face with a paper.

By Stable Hand at 10:06 AM | |