Terror suspects arrested in Australia

POLICE in Australia arrested 15 terror suspects in a string of raids early today and said they had foiled a major terror attack.

New South Wales Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said 400 officers were involved in raids in Sydney that captured six men while nine more suspects were picked up in Melbourne.

“I’m satisfied that we have disrupted what I would regard as the final stages of a large scale terrorist attack ... here in Australia,” he said.

Police declined to give details of the likely target of the attack, but Victoria state police chief Christine Nixon said next year’s Commonwealth Games, to be staged in Melbourne, were not a target.

Rob Stary, a Melbourne lawyer who said he represented eight people arrested in the city, said most of his clients had been charged with being members of a banned organisations.

The 15 are expected to appear in court in Sydney and Melbourne later today.

Australia has never been hit by a major terror attack, but its citizens have repeatedly been targeted overseas, particularly in neighbouring Indonesia.

Just last week, Prime Minister John Howard said Australian authorities had received specific intelligence about an attack on the country.

The Australian Parliament last week approved an amendment to anti-terrorism laws that allows police to arrest people involved in the early stages of planning an unspecified terror attack. Ms Nixon said some of the arrests were made possible by the new legislation.