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Pakistani terrorists are operating here: Ruddock
A Pakistani terrorist group which may have recruited suspected French terrorist Willy Brigitte to attack Australian targets is operating a cell in Australia, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said yesterday. Mr Ruddock said Guantanamo Bay inmates and suspected Australian terrorists David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib had also allegedly been trained by the group, Lashkar-e-Taiba.Thatâs interesting, I wonder if their recruiters were also LeT or just fellow travellers? ASIO alerted the Government to the group late last year and it immediately rushed legislation through Parliament to outlaw the group. Mr Ruddock said the Government had received intelligence that the terrorist outfit was not just conducting training activities and other terrorism-related activities in Kashmir and Pakistan. "We came to a view on advice that it did have connections with Australia," he said. The emergence of the group and the possibility its Australian cell was planning to attack key Sydney installations could be confirmed by two current affairs programs within the next 48 hours. You can read a transcript of the Sunday report here, although itâs revelations have already been posted on Rantburg the past few days. Channel Nineâs Sunday program is expected to name a 35-year-old Sydney man of Pakistani background as a key contact of Brigitte. The ABCâs Four Corners program has also conducted a long investigation into Brigitte and the terrorist network he allegedly worked with while visiting Sydney last year. The Lakemba man at the centre of the investigations is innocent, the manâs lawyer has said. Sydney lawyer Steven Hopper, who also represents Mamdouh Habib, said there was no evidence to link his client to terrorism.
Posted by: Paul Moloney 2004-02-08 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=25816 |