Terror plot foiled, claims Australia

A police van (C) carrying arrested terrorist suspects is driven into a Sydney court yesterday. Australian police said they foiled a "large-scale terrorist attack" yesterday after pre-dawn raids in Sydney and Melbourne when officers arrested a radical Islamic cleric, 16 others and shot a suspected extremist.. PHOTO: AFP

Abdul Nacer Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr, has long been monitored by Australian authorities and grabbed headlines in August after he praised bin Laden, blamed for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

He is a self-styled leader of a fundamentalist Islamic group of young followers in the suburbs of Australia's second-biggest city, Melbourne. Some of these followers, local radio reported, attended militant training camps in Asia.

"Osama Bin Laden, he is a great man," Benbrika, 45, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) radio in August.

Following police raids in Sydney and Melbourne on Tuesday, Benbrika was charged with directing the activities of a terrorist organisation and remanded in custody until January.

Benbrika's passport was confiscated in March on advice from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, which then raided his Melbourne home in June, ABC radio has reported.

But Benbrika, a dual Australi-an/Algerian citizen who has at least six children and has lived in Melbourne since 1989, denied he was a security threat.

"I am not involved in anything here. I am teaching my brothers here the Koran and the Sunna, and I am trying my best to keep myself, my family, my kids and the Muslims close to this religion," he told the ABC, referring to the holy book and the code of conduct for Muslims.

Benbrika said he opposed anyone trying to harm his religion. He also said it was a "big problem" for Muslims reconciling their religion with life in Australia.

"There are two laws. There is Australian law. There is Islamic law," he said, adding the only law that needed to be spread was Islam.

"Jihad is part of my religion, and what you have to understand that anyone who fights for the sake of Allah ... (with) the first drop of blood that comes from him out, all his sin will be forgiven," he said.

Other Australian Muslim leaders have said Benbrika represented a minority view, and Prime Minister John Howard did not invite Benbrika to a summit of key Muslim leaders in August.