Five Australian teenagers are arrested on suspicion of plotting an attack at a veterans' day ceremony in Melbourne, officials say.
The men aged 18 and 19 were detained in the city's southeast in the early hours of Saturday in a series of raids, police said, as the culmination of a month-long operation code-named Operation Rising.
Senior police officials said they were confident the threat had been contained. They gave few details of the plan, but said the initial target was police officers, referring to potential use of "edged weapons".
'Islamic state'
Acting Deputy Police Commissioner Neil Gaughan told reporters that evidence suggested the suspects had been influenced by Islamic State militants. He told a news conference in Melbourne that the plan targeted "ANZAC Day activity in Melbourne which included targeting police officers".
ANZAC Day on 25 April is an major annual holiday in Australia and New Zealand marking the date of the first Gallipoli landings in 1915, in which large numbers of Australian and New Zealand troops fought and died.
The run-up to this year's centenary has been marked by numerous television programmes about the campaign, fought against the Muslim Ottoman Empire in what is now western Turkey. Concerns have risen in recent weeks that Islamic State militants might use the anniversary to carry out attacks on Australian targets...My "tribute" to Oz cops:
By calling their weapons "edged"
The cops have soft-peddled and hedged.
The Aussies fought the Ottoman
And tried to kill a lot of men,
And the jihad--it's real, not alleged.
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