{"id":109507,"date":"2015-04-18T11:58:46","date_gmt":"2015-04-18T11:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=109507"},"modified":"2015-04-18T11:58:46","modified_gmt":"2015-04-18T11:58:46","slug":"australian-teenagers-held-over-alleged-melbourne-terror-plot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=109507","title":{"rendered":"Australian teenagers held over alleged Melbourne terror plot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police in Australia say they have foiled an Islamic State-inspired plot to carry out an attack at a World War One centenary event.<\/p>\n

Police arrested five teenage suspects, charging one 18-year-old with conspiring to commit a terrorist act.<\/p>\n

The men were planning to target police at an Anzac memorial event in Melbourne next week, police said.<\/p>\n

About 200 police officers took part in the counter-terrorism operation in the city early on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Acting Deputy Police Commissioner Neil Gaughan told reporters that evidence suggested the suspects had been influenced by Islamic State.<\/p>\n

One of the men, Sevdet Besim, appeared briefly in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Police say a second man held on terrorism-related offences is also likely to be charged.<\/p>\n

A third man, also 18, was arrested on weapons charges and two other teenagers, aged 18 and 19, were in custody and assisting with inquiries.<\/p>\n

Officials referred to possible attacks using “edged weapons”, but Mr Gaughan said there was no evidence to suggest there was “a planned beheading”.<\/p>\n

\"A
Police conducted several raids in Melbourne on Saturday morning<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The men were “associates” of Abdul Numan Haider, a teenager shot dead in September after he stabbed two officers, police said.<\/p>\n

Anzac Day is an annual day of remembrance for servicemen and women from Australia and New Zealand. A series of events are planned for next week to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli, Turkey.<\/p>\n

‘Not people of faith’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott urged people to turn up to memorial events as planned.<\/p>\n

“The best thing we can do to counter terrorism… as individuals is to lead normal lives,” he said, adding that the authorities were doing everything possible to keep people safe.<\/p>\n

\"Australia's
Tony Abbott urged people to continue their plans as normal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Police said that although officers were the primary target of the alleged plot there was also a threat to the public.<\/p>\n

Search operations were continuing at several addresses in the south-east of the city on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, said the police presence at Anzac Day events would be “significantly increased”.<\/p>\n

“These individuals arrested today are not people of faith, they don’t represent any culture,” he added.<\/p>\n

“This is not an issue of how you pray or where you were born… this is simply evil, plain and simple.”<\/p>\n

Australia raised its threat level to high last September and has since carried out a series of counter-terrorism raids.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Police in Australia say they have foiled an Islamic State-inspired plot to carry out an attack at a World War One centenary event. Police arrested five teenage suspects, charging one 18-year-old with conspiring to commit a terrorist act. The men were planning to target police at an Anzac memorial event in Melbourne next week, police […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":109510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-109507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=109507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/109510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=109507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=109507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=109507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}