Al-Qaeda linked to terror plot

By Cameron StewartNovember 11, 2005

MEMBERS of an alleged terror cell in Melbourne downloaded an al-Qaeda call-to-arms document that celebrates the Bali bombings and calls on Muslims to commit the "heroic act of jihad" against the West.Computer hard drives seized by ASIO also contained information about the banned organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba, as well as news articles about ASIO's counter-terrorism activities.

Violent videos showing insurgents fighting against Western troops in Iraq and Afghanistan were also found in the homes of at least one of the nine accused men in Melbourne, according to well-placed sources.

Gallery: The terror accused

The Australian understands that the evidence was uncovered by ASIO in raids on three Melbourne properties in June.

Evidence from those raids played a key role in the arrests of 17 people in Melbourne and Sydney this week on terror-related charges.

On one computer hard drive, ASIO allegedly found a call-to-arms document, compiled by an al-Qaeda-linked group in Saudi Arabia, which describes the 2002 Bali bombings as a "smart" act.
"Mujaheddin are smart and they know exactly what they are doing," says the document, which the Melbourne group allegedly downloaded from the internet. "They knew exactly what they were doing when they attacked the Australians in Bali. They knew that the Australians were against the war (on Iraq) and the blame would fall on the Australian Prime Minister."

The 2004 document, compiled by an al-Qaeda-linked group called the Militant Committee of the Mujaheddin in the Arabian peninsula, claims Western culture is "trying to turn off the light of God" and calls on Muslims to destroy the "bad and rotten regimes" of the West.

"Stay with the jihad and continue to kill and fight every enemy of God," the document says.

"The caravan is going and the dogs are barking."

The author of the article is Abu-Mohammed Al-Maqdisi, the jailed spiritual mentor of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

He blames the Americans for starting a war between Islam and the West.

"You are foolish. Do you think we care about anything more than destroying and ending these bad and rotten regimes? This is our duty as Muslims, to cut the ties between Muslims and their enemies."

Although the call-to-arms document is linked to al-Qaeda, police sources say there is no evidence that any overseas group specifically ordered the terror attack which the Australian groups are alleged to have been planning.

However, the raids on homes in Sydney and Melbourne this week, involving 500 police and ASIO agents, netted a large amount of new evidence which is now being examined.

Authorities are carefully tracing any connections between the 17 men arrested in Sydney and Melbourne and individuals and groups overseas.

Britain's M15, the American CIA and Israel's Mossad are helping Australian investigators, but no major links to overseas terror groups have been identified.

Meanwhile, Peter Costello has warned that those Muslims who want to live in a country governed by sharia law, which imposes strict limitations on personal freedoms, should live elsewhere.

"If you are somebody who wants to live in an Islamic state governed by sharia law you are not going to be happy in Australia because Australia is not an Islamic state, will never be an Islamic state and will never be governed by sharia law," the Treasurer said yesterday.

The nation's fundamentalist clerics are also under pressure to curtail inflammatory language after The Australian yesterday revealed close links between radical prayer halls and the alleged terror cells in Melbourne and Sydney.

Six of the nine men charged with terror-related offences in Melbourne this week are, or were, devotees of controversial Melbourne cleric Sheik Mohammed Omran. Sheik Omran has declined to comment on the links between the accused terror groups and his organisation, the Ahlus Sunnah Wal-Jammah Association, which has prayer halls in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth.

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