Australian police officers stand outside a Melbourne Court where four men were charged with planning an attack on a military base August 4, 2009. Australian police arrested four men linked to a hardline Somali group on Tuesday, charging them with planning a commando-style suicide attack on a military base and underlining that the country remains a target for Islamists.
CANBERRA, Aug. 4 -- Australian police revealed on Tuesday that they had foiled a mission by Islamic terrorists to launch a suicide shoot-out on a military base in what would have been the worst-ever terrorist attack on home soil.
During the operation, four people arrested, all Australian citizens, were allegedly planning a suicide mission using semi-automatic weapons on an Australian military base.
In seven months of surveillance and a series of raids early on Tuesday, code named operation Neath, about 400 officers from the Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police and New South Wales Police took part in it.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the raids were a sober reminder that the threat of terrorism remains.
Australian police officers drive a man (L, with hood covering face) into a Melbourne Court to be charged with planning an attack on a military base August 4, 2009.
"There is an enduring threat from terrorism at home here in Australia as well as overseas," Rudd told reporters in Cairns.
Rudd said there was no need for the national counter terrorism level to change from medium as it had been since the September 11,2001 attacks in the United States.
He said he wanted to reassure all Australians that the nation's law enforcement and intelligence agencies were working hard to combat terrorism.
"The threat of terrorism is alive and well and this requires continued vigilance," he said.
(Xinhua)
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