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Entertainment BREAKING NEWS Update: Australia arrests 16 allegedly planning terror attack Sydney, Australia (dpa) - Australian police Monday arrested 16 suspected Islamic militants and seized a stockpile of chemicals in raids they said had foiled a "large scale" terrorist plot. Among those arrested was a fiery Moslem cleric whose followers were seen filming Melbourne landmarks, police said. A man was shot in Sydney at th e time of the raids in what was believed to be a related incident. The sweep of homes in Sydney and Melbourne came just days after parliamen t sat in emergency session to pass an anti-terror amendment triggered by the London bombings in July. Chemicals were seized in what police said was the culmination of a 16-mon th investigation. Authorities refused to comment on speculation that the suspects were linked to a group whose members were seen last year filmi ng Melbourne landmarks. "I am satisfied that we have disrupted what I would regard as the final s tages of a large scale terrorist attack or the launch of a large scale t errorist attack in Australia," New South Wales Police Commissioner Ken M aroney said. In June, agents of the ASIO spy agency raided homes of Moslem radicals. M embers of the group, followers of Algerian-born cleric Abdul Nacer Benbr ika, were last year observed filming the stock exchange, the central tra in station and other landmarks in Melbourne. Benbrika, who was arrested Monday, made headlines in August when he prais ed bin Laden as "a great man" and said the United States government carr ied out the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washing ton to discredit Moslems. ASIO is believed to have pushed for an urgent change in Australian law so plotters could be picked up even when the time and place of the attack they were plotting had not been established. In Melbourne, Victoria Police Commissioner Christine Nixon said that alth ough the alleged terrorist plan involved no specific target, arrests wer e possible under the amendment rushed through in a special session of pa rliament last week. "That was one of the significant points about the amendment, as the previ ous legislation required us to have a particular location," Nixon said. She echoed Maroney's conviction that an attack had been thwarted. "We thi nk we've prevented a major terrorist attack that would have occurred," N ixon said. The arrests came four days after parliament was recalled to amend legisla tion to deal with what Prime Minister John Howard called a "specific thr eat" to national security. The change came at the insistence of police and intelligence agencies, wh o feared a group of locally born Moslem extremists was planning a terror ist attack. Howard has won approval from parliament and state leaders for fresh count er-terrorism laws. The draft legislation, likely to pass by the end of the year, provides fo r terrorist suspects to be served with control orders that for a period of 12 months would oblige them to wear electronic tagging devices, repor t to authorities regularly and undertake not to make contact with certai n people or groups. Police would also get the power to detain suspects without charge for up to 14 days. A further provision would bulk up the seditions laws to make it a crime to incite violence or sow hatred. Howard said new counter-terrorism legislation was called for in the wake of the London bombings in June in which an Australian was among the more than 50 people who died. Following the London blasts, ASIO voiced its c oncern over "home-grown" Moslem terrorists prepared to die in order to k ill and main other Australians. There has not been a major terrorist attack in Australia, but 88 Australi ans were among the 202 people killed in the first Bali bombings in Octob er 2002. Four Australians were among the 23 people killed in the second bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali in October. There are about 300,000 Moslems in Australia, around half of them in Sydn ey.
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