Five Australian teenagers were arrested Saturday on suspicion of plotting an Islamic State group-inspired terrorist attack at a Veterans’ Day ceremony that included targeting police officers, officials said.
The suspects included two 18-year-olds who are alleged to have been preparing an attack at the ANZAC Day ceremony in Melbourne, Australian Federal Police Acting Deputy Commissioner Neil Gaughan told reporters.
Another 18-year-old was arrested on weapons charges and two other men, aged 18 and 19, were in custody and assisting police. All the arrests took place in Melbourne.
ANZAC stands for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and commemorates the World War I battle in Turkey on April 25.
Police said they believe the plot was inspired by the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, and was to have involved “edged weapons” (a police and military term referring to weapons with blades like knives, swords and machetes.)
“At this stage we have no information that it was a planned beheading. But there was reference to an attack on police,” Gaughan said. “Some evidence that we have collected at a couple of the scenes, and some other information we have, leads us to believe that this particular matter was ISIS-inspired.”
Australia’s government has raised the country’s terror warning level in response to the domestic threat posed by supporters of the Islamic State group. In September last year, the group’s spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani issued a message urging attacks abroad, specifically mentioning Australia.
Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan said at a separate news conference that the teens had links to Numan Haider, an 18-year-old who stabbed two Melbourne police officers and was subsequently shot dead in September. Haider had caught the attention of authorities months earlier over what police considered to be troubling behaviour, including waving what appeared to be an Islamic State group flag at a shopping mall.
Phelan said the teens arrested on Saturday had been on officials’ radars for months, but the investigation ramped up when it appeared they were planning a specific attack.
“This is a new paradigm for police,” Phelan said. “These types of attacks that are planned are very rudimentary and simple. … All you need these days is a knife, a flag and a camera and one can commit a terrorist act.”
One of the teens, Sevdet Besim, appeared briefly in court on Saturday on a charge of preparing for, or planning, a terrorist act. He did not apply for bail and was ordered to reappear in court next week.
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