FED: Terror attack would have happened within weeks: NSW police

AAP General News (Australia)
08-05-2009
FED: Terror attack would have happened within weeks: NSW police

CANBERRA, Aug 5 AAP - A thwarted terrorist attack on a Sydney army barracks would have
happened "within weeks", the head of counter terrorism with the NSW police Peter Dein
believes.

About 400 police swooped on 19 properties in Melbourne's north, the inner city and
southwestern Victoria in pre-dawn raids on Tuesday, resulting in the arrest of five men.

Four of them have been charged over an alleged suicide plot on the Holsworthy's army
base in Sydney.

The fifth man is expected to be charged later on Wednesday.

The men were well advanced in their planning and had access to domestic-type weapons,
Mr Dein, a NSW assistant police commissioner, told ABC Radio on Wednesday

"There's no specific date that we believed that these people would commit their overt
acts, but it was probably getting to the point where it would have happened within weeks,"

he said.

"It will be alleged they had access to domestic-type weapons - weapons that maybe a
licensed shooter would have access to.

"There was no evidence that we had at this stage they had access to automatic weapons,
but it will be alleged they were certainly planning to get access somehow."

Mr Dein said the media's influence in the raids would also be investigated, after
The Australian splashed the story across its front page on Tuesday.

"It brought our action forward, there's no doubt about that," he said.

AAP cj/rl/bwl

KEYWORD: TERROR DEIN

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