Australian Police Arrest 5 Men They Say Were Planning Terror Attacks - New York Times

SYDNEY, Australia — The Australian police arrested five men Saturday who they said had been planning terrorist attacks during an upcoming national holiday. Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the men had been inspired by the Islamic State extremist group.

The police said they believed two of the men, both 18-year-olds, had been preparing to attack police officers in Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, during the Anzac Day holiday on April 25. Anzac Day honors the landing of troops from Australia and New Zealand on the Gallipoli peninsula during World War One; this year’s holiday is the centennial, and large-scale public commemorations are planned for next weekend.

“We believe that the potential attack was inspired by the Daesh death cult in the Middle East,” Mr. Abbott said at a news conference in Sydney hours after the arrests. Daesh is an alternate term for the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, which controls territory in Iraq and Syria.

The arrests followed raids early Saturday morning on several residences in Melbourne by about 200 police officers.

The five men arrested had been under surveillance, and the raids were conducted after the police became aware of a specific threat, Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan of the Australian Federal Police said at the news conference where Mr. Abbott spoke. “These people have been on our radar,” Mr. Phelan said.

Mr. Phelan said he was “extremely confident that this particular cell, and these particular plans” had been stopped.

The two 18-year-olds are likely to be charged with preparing to commit a terrorist act and possessing prohibited weapons, the police said. A third man, also 18, was expected to face weapons charges; two others, one 18 and one 19, were expected to be charged after further questioning by the police.

At a news conference in Melbourne, Neil Gaughan, an acting deputy commissioner for the federal police, said the five men were associates of Abdul Numan Haider, who was shot and killed in Melbourne last September after attacking two police officers with a knife. The police said Mr. Haider was a “known terrorist suspect” whose passport had been confiscated.

The Australian government says it has confiscated the passports of about 100 Australians to prevent them from traveling to the Middle East to join extremists fighting there. Mr. Abbott said on Saturday that domestic intelligence agencies were conducting more than 400 investigations into what he termed “people who would do us harm.”

In February, two men were arrested in suburban Sydney after a police raid on their home found weapons, a homemade Islamic State flag and a video recording of one of the men talking about carrying out an attack. Police also found a machete and a hunting knife.

Australia has joined the U.S.-led coalition in air raids against Islamic State in Syria, and last week Australian and New Zealand troops left for Iraq to help train the Iraqi Army in its fight against the militants.

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