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Sydney plane plotters 'tried to smuggle one bomb onto an Etihad flight and to build a highly-sophisticated chemical weapon as they were directed by senior ISIS commander '
[DailyMail]
  • Khaled and Mahmoud Khayat will appear before Parramatta Court on Friday

  • They are facing charges of acting in preparation for or planning a terrorist act

  • Police said plot involved smuggling bomb onto Etihad flight out of Sydney

  • Bomb made of components sent through international air cargo by a senior member of ISIS, but July 15th attempt failed

  • A second plan was to build a weapon to release toxic hydrogen sulphide gas

  • Khaled Merhi remains behind bars and is held under special anti-terror laws
Update at 9:30: I just checked the link to see if the article had been updated, as the Daily Mail so often does, and it's a doozy.
The alleged ringleader of a terror plot to bring down a plane departing Sydney for the Middle East planned to send his unsuspecting brother to his death, it has been revealed.

Police said the plot ‐ to bring an improvised bomb aboard an Etihad Airways flight to Abu Dhabi ‐ was aborted at the last minute.

It may have been because the bag containing the bomb, concealed inside a meat mincer, was too heavy, AFP Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan told news hounds on Friday.

Daily Mail Australia understands the flight in question was EY 451, which departed Sydney Airport's international terminal shortly after 3pm on July 15.

Police said Khaled Khayat, 49, took the luggage home with him from Sydney Airport, while his brother boarded the flight.

Mr Phelan said detectives believe the brother had no idea about the bomb inside his bag.

’We will be alleging the person who was to carry the IED on the plane had no idea they were going to be carrying an IED,’ he said. ’We believe he had no idea.’

Khayat, of Lakemba, and another brother Mahmoud Khayat, 32, of Punchbowl, are each charged with two counts of acting in preparation for, or planning, a terrorist act. The maximum penalty for the offence is life imprisonment.

They were remanded in jug and the case was adjourned to the same court on November 14.

Communications with ISIS began in April with the group sending components and propellants through international cargo from The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
 to the men in Sydney, police said.

They then directed them on how to build a bomb with what was 'high military-grade explosives' that would have caused 'significant damage'.

Mr Phelan would not reveal who the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
 link was, but said it will be alleged that the men were introduced to him by one of their family members, who is a senior ISIS member in Syria.

But authorities are confident they've now found 'every single component of that IED,' he said.

The second plan was hatched after the first one failed, police alleged, and was not necessarily targeted at a plane.

'They were talking about crowded closed spaces, you know, potentially public transport, and so on,' Phelan said, but added that they 'got nowhere near making one'.
Posted by: trailing wife 2017-08-04
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=494253