SYDNEY (Reuters) - Eight Sydney men arrested on terrorism charges may have been planning a bomb attack against the city's nuclear reactor, police said on Monday.
Their Islamic spiritual leader, also charged with terrorism offences, told the men if they wanted to die for jihad they should inflict "maximum damage," according to a 21-page police court document.
The document outlines how the men, arrested last week in the nation's biggest security swoop, bought chemicals used in the London July 7 bombs, had bomb-making instructions in Arabic and videos entitled "Sheikh Osama's Training Course" and "Are you ready to die?"
Under the heading "Targets," police said three of the men were stopped near Sydney's Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in December 2004. A security gate lock had recently been cut.
Australia, a staunch U.S. ally with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, has never suffered a major peacetime attack on home soil. The country has been on medium security alert since shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
The document said six of the men went on "hunting and camping trips," which police described as jihad training camps, in the Australian outback in March and April 2005.
"This training is consistent with the modus operandi of terrorists prior to attacks," the police document said, adding one man attended a training camp in Pakistan in 2001.
"EXTREMIST ADVICE"
Police said a Melbourne-based Muslim cleric, arrested in the security swoop and charged with terror offences along with eight other men in Melbourne, was the spiritual leader of the Sydney and Melbourne groups.
Muslim teacher Abdul Nacer Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr, gave "extremist advice and guidance" and "has publicly declared his support of a violent jihad," the document said.
At a February meeting Benbrika talked to the Sydney men about fighting those who opposed Sharia law.
"If we want to die for jihad, we have to have maximum damage. Maximum damage. Damage their buildings, everything. Damage their lives," said Benbrika, according to the document.
