An Australian senator startled his colleagues by producing a fake pipe bomb during a committee hearing.

One of four men charged accused of plotting a suicide attack on an Australian military base angrily denied he was a terrorist today and accused the country’s troops of killing innocent people overseas.

AUSTRALIAN police said yesterday they had arrested four people after foiling a Somali-linked suicide plot to storm a military base in what would have been the country’s worst extremist attack.

Australian police said today that they have thwarted a terrorist plot in which Somali extremists planned to invade a military base and open fire with automatic weapons until they were shot dead themselves.

Police in Australia said today they had foiled a suicide bomb plot after arresting four men who were allegedly planning commando-style attacks on at least one army base.