Rookie ASIO agent foiled Christmas Day terrorists, by Tessa Akerman.

A rookie female ASIO officer helped thwart what would have been Australia’s worst terrorist attack when she spotted young men visiting a chemist shop late at night to gather bomb-making chemicals.

New details of how close a terror cell came to pulling off horrific attacks on Christmas Day in Melbourne in 2016 can be revealed today for the first time after a court yesterday lifted a suppression order.

Australia’s spy chief, Duncan Lewis, has told how an 11th-hour tip from the new ASIO recruit helped authorities foil martyrdom missions using vehicles, knives and suicide vests at crowded Melbourne landmarks including Federation Square, Flinders Street Station and St Paul’s Cathedral at Christmas time 2016. …

Four Sunni Muslim men, all home-grown jihadis, were ­arrested at gunpoint on December 22, 2016, and charged with conspiring to carry out acts in preparation for a terrorist attack, as authorities rushed to prevent a likely attack on Christmas Day.

The men had links to the notorious Hume Islamic Youth Centre and met there on December 20, before heading into the city on a reconnaissance mission that was captured on CCTV. …

Interesting conversation:

The day after visiting Federation Square police secretly recorded a conversation between Mohamed and Ibrahim Abbas where Mohamed repeatedly said he was “shitting bricks”.

Mohamed however went on to say he was “not backing down … I’m just worrying bro”.

The two also discussed strapping Mohamed’s wife with an explosive device.

“Strap her and just drop her,” Mohamed said.

“Drop her off and go.”

Abbas rejected the idea.

“What if it doesn’t blow up on her, she gets caught?” he said.

“See it’s different if we get caught, but if she gets caught. If she gets caught her-what’s-it called, her honour is gunna get touched.”

Meanwhile our ruling class ignores 1,400 years of history by this supremacist group with their totalitarian ideology. Sigh.

hat-tip Stephen Neil