Sydney – Australian police and security agencies have foiled a “very substantial” terrorist plot targeting key locations in Melbourne on Christmas Day, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Friday.
“This news will be of great concern to all Australians … We congregate in public places for Christmas, for New Year’s Eve. It is a time of happiness and joy. These terrorists sought to disrupt it. They have been thwarted,” Turnbull told reporters in Sydney.
Some 400 heavily armed police raided several homes in Melbourne’s north late Thursday and early Friday and arrested seven people for allegedly planning the terrorist attack. Two were later released.
File photo of Christmas decorations on Flinders Street Station Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (Credit Image: © Tom Griffiths/ZUMAPRESS.com)
Those arrested were allegedly planning to attack the iconic Flinders Street train station, the popular tourist destination Federation Square and St Paul’s Cathedral, chief police commissioner Graham Ashton said in Melbourne.
He said the alleged plotters were self-radicalized and inspired by Islamic State and Islamic State propaganda. He also said they had planned to use an explosive device and other weapons in the attack.
“We believe it was certainly going to involve an explosive event,” Ashton told reporters.
“If this had got under our guard this would have been a significant attack,” he continued, adding that a substantial number of people could have been killed and injured.
Ashton said the plotters were aged between 20 and 25 years old and all were Australia-born except for one, who was an Egyptian-born Australian citizen.
The police had been following the alleged plotters for some time and believed they were preparing a “multi-mode” attack, Ashton said, adding that the threat had now been neutralized.
Daniel Andrews, the premier of Victoria state, of which Melbourne is the capital, said there would be extra police on the streets on Christmas Day for public security and people should go about their business safe in the knowledge that police were protecting them.
“What was being planned was not an act of faith, was not an act of religious observance, it was instead in its planning, an act of evil, a criminal act,” he told reporters.
Turnbull praised the work of police and security agencies in foiling the plot.
“I can assure all Australians that our police services right across the country, our intelligence agencies right across the country, and around the world, are at the highest state of alert,” he said.
“Islamist terrorism is a global challenge that affects us all. But we must not be cowed by the terrorists,” he said, mentioning the recent Berlin attack at a Christmas market that killed 12 people.
Australian Justice Minister Michael Keenan said that since mid-2014 there had been four terror attacks on Australian soil and the Melbourne raids was the 12th potential attack to be disrupted.
“But this disruption is amongst the most serious in terms of its intent,” he said.
– dpa
