'Imminent' Islamic State-linked terror plot foiled in Australia

Two Sydney men have been charged on Wednesday with planning to launch an imminent terrorist attack, after police seized a homemade flag associated with the Islamic State group, a machete and a hunting knife in a counterterrorism raid. The men, aged 24 and 25, would have carried out the attack on Tuesday if they had not been arrested that day in the raid in the Sydney suburb of Fairfield, New South Wales.

We believe that the men were potentially going to harm somebody, maybe even kill somebody, and potentially using one of the items that we identified and recovered yesterday, potentially a knife.

New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn

The men were charged with undertaking acts in preparation or planning for a terrorist act. They were refused bail and were expected to appear in court later Wednesday. They could face life in prison if convicted. Police don’t believe there is any link between the men’s alleged plot and another plot that prompted a series of counterterror raids in Sydney in September. One man arrested during those raids was charged with conspiring with an Islamic State leader in Syria to behead a random person in Sydney.

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