MELBOURNE - One man has faced court and several more could be charged over an alleged suicide plot to kill Australian soldiers in what police say would have been the deadliest terror attack on Australian soil.
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Four people were arrested and more were being questioned after pre-dawn raids on 19 properties across Melbourne and regional Victoria foiled the plot to attack the Holsworthy army base, in western Sydney.
Nayef El Sayed, of Glenroy in Melbourne's north, appeared in Melbourne Magistrates Court charged with conspiring with four men and other unknown people to prepare an armed attack on Holsworthy, base to several thousand troops.
Australian Federal Police Acting Chief Commissioner Tony Negus said the men were planning a suicide shoot-out with automatic weapons.
"The men's intention was to actually go into the army barracks and to kill as many soldiers as they could before they were killed," Mr Negus said..
"Potentially this would have been, if it had been able to be carried out, the most serious terrorist attack on Australian soil."
He said investigators also believed the men had links to a north African terrorist group, al-Shabaab, which has links to al-Qaeda.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the alleged plot shows the threat of terrorism is alive and well.
"There is an enduring threat from terrorism at home here in Australia as well as overseas," Mr Rudd said in Cairns.
Following a seven-month joint operation, 400 AFP and Victoria Police officers launched raids at 4.30am yesterday on properties in suburbs in Melbourne's north, inner city Carlton and Colac in the state's south-west.
The four arrested men, who are all Australian citizens of Lebanese and Somalian descent, are El Sayed and a 26-year-old Carlton man, a 25-year-old Preston man and a 22-year-old man from Meadow Heights.
Police are also interviewing a fifth man, a 33-year-old, who is already in custody in relation to other matters.
AFP agent David Kinton had earlier told the court police believed there was a conspiracy to commit an act in preparation of terrorism.
He said there were a number of phone intercepts in which another suspect, Saney Aweyz, allegedly raised the possibility of sending men to be involved in the civil war in Somalia.
He said police had also recorded other discussions about engaging in violent activity in Australia.
Mr Kinton said text messages seized by police involving other people discussed the address of a military base in Sydney and the name of a railway station.
Intercepted phone calls also revealed discussions about attempts to find an Islamic religious figure who would support a violent attack in Australia, he said.
KEY POINTS
Name of operation: Operation Neath.
Length of operation: Seven months of surveillance.
Search warrants: 19.
Number of arrests so far: 4.
Number of police involved: 400 from AFP, Victoria Police and NSW Police.
Locations of raids: Carlton, Glenroy, Meadow Heights, Roxburgh Park, Broadmeadows, Westmeadows, Preston and Epping in Melbourne's north; Colac in south-western Victoria.
What's alleged: Police will allege the men were planning a suicide terrorist attack on a defence base, believed to be Holsworthy Barracks in Sydney's west.
What else: The investigation also uncovered links to a north African terrorist group, al-Shabaab.
Police said they will allege the suspected terrorist cell was involved in supporting the Islamic insurgency in Somalia.
