Terror suspect admits plot to hit Australia

6 Dec, 2001 12:12 PM4 mins to read

By SCOTT INGLIS and AGENCIES

A man suspected of links with Osama bin Laden's terrorist network has confessed to planning suicide attacks in Australia, where he took flying lessons.

He was arrested in India on suspicion of having links with al Qaeda and told authorities he had planned attacks in Australia, Britain and on the Indian Parliament.

The 26-year-old, in custody in Bombay, trained as a pilot in Australia in 1997 and 1998.

The Age newspaper in Melbourne reported that he enrolled to be trained at Qantas Airways in the city.

Australian Attorney-General Daryl Williams said international intelligence agencies were aware of claims that a group was training to carry out attacks in the three countries.

"He claimed he undertook that training for terrorist purposes," Mr Williams said. The suicide attacks presumably would have involved hijacked planes.

The man, arrested last week, was not an Australian but his name and nationality have not been given.

Indian Home Minister L.K. Advani said the suspect had made "some very shocking confessions" but police did not have enough evidence to form a case.

News of the arrest emerged yesterday as the Australian media reported that New Zealand SAS troops were expected to be involved in the final assault on bin Laden's mountain hideout in Afghanistan.

Sydney Morning Herald correspondent Mark Baker, in Chaman on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, said anti-Taleban forces were advancing unopposed as United States forces bombed the cave-riddled eastern mountains of Tora Bora.

Prime Minister Helen Clark has refused to say whether New Zealand Special Air Service troops have been deployed.

Australian authorities have checked flight centres to find out if anyone suspicious was among the thousands who had undertaken flight training.

Mr Williams said the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation briefed him yesterday morning on the man in custody in India.

But he refused to specify the man's nationality or give details of the group intelligence sources identified as planning the attacks.

Mr Williams and Britain's Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, who is in Australia on an official visit, played down any risk to Australia and Britain.

"We provide security we think is necessary for the circumstances," Mr Prescott said. "We are constantly updating and reviewing [it] and it is held in the highest priority.

"So far we have had no such incidents and that is due a great deal to the vigilance and security which have been imposed."

Mr Williams said Australia had been on heightened security alert since the September 11 terrorist atrocities in the US.

"We are putting in place a range of measures we believe will assist in the war against terrorism," he said.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the matter should be treated seriously and not as a hoax.

"We can be grateful for the fact that he has been arrested by Indian authorities and it just simply underlines the point that we do live in very dangerous times and all countries have to be much more vigilant with their security," he said.

The case brings international terrorism a step closer to New Zealand, but yesterday the matter had not been brought to the attention of Foreign Minister Phil Goff.

Police here were also unaware of the confession or whether there was any New Zealand link.

Detective Superintendent Bill Bishop, national crimes manager at police headquarters, told the Herald: "The short answer is I don't know and I would have expected to know if there had been a New Zealand connection.

"But we'll make some inquiries anyway."

In August last year, the Herald revealed that New Zealand detectives had foiled a possible terrorist plot to target a nuclear reactor in Sydney before the Olympic Games.

It was found that members of what appeared to be a clandestine cell among Afghan refugees in Auckland maintained direct telephone links with suspected terrorist organisations. Police stumbled across the apparent reactor conspiracy during a people-smuggling inquiry.

In October, the Herald learned that the Security Intelligence Service had been investigating a visit by two men believed to be Arabs to a Hamilton photocopying centre.

The shop owners said the men made copies of an aircraft manual in Arabic.

Airports in NZ also tightened security following the attacks in New York and Washington.

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