Raids foil planned Melbourne Christmas terror attack, police say.
(FOX)- Australian police say five men are accused of planning a Christmas Day terror attack targeting a number of landmarks in Melbourne, the country’s second largest city.
The five suspects, all in their early 20s, were expected to appear in court Friday to be charged with acts in preparation of a terrorist event. They are believed to have been “self-radicalized” and inspired by ISIS, police said.
Four of the five suspects were born in Australia. The fifth is from Egypt. They were arrested in a series of overnight raids at properties in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton told reporters that police had gathered evidence in the raids that the plotters were planning to use explosives in their attack.
“We gathered the makings of an improvised explosive device,” he said.
Ashton said the suspects had planned attacks on Melbourne’s Flinders Street train station, neighboring Federation Square and nearby St. Paul’s Cathedral.
“If this had got under our guard this would have been a significant attack,” Ashton told reporters. “Certainly (there was the) potential for quite a number of people to be injured or killed in this attack.”