Sydney reactor 'on terror list'

A guard stands behind the gate to Lucas Heights. Picture / Reuters

An ageing nuclear research reactor in Sydney's sprawling suburbs has been identified as a possible target of Australia's suspected terrorist network.

The potential threat to the 47-year-old reactor at Lucas Heights, to be replaced by a new plant due to start commissioning next month, was revealed yesterday in a previously suppressed police statement of facts outlining the case against eight Sydney men charged with terrorism offences.

Three of the men were stopped by police near the facility last December, it was revealed.

The men, who are also said to have assembled enough chemicals to make 15 large bombs and to have undergone military-style training in the New South Wales Outback, were further linked to the 10 members of an alleged Melbourne cell.

Abdul Nacer Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr, the alleged leader of the two groups, was said to have discussed suicide-bombings with members.

Police claim he told the men: "If we want to die for jihad, we have to have maximum damage ... Damage to their buildings, everything. Damage their lives to show them.

"In this we'll have to be careful."

The latest revelations came as Australian nerves were stretched further by a terror scare in Brisbane, where peak-hour trains, buses and railway stations were shut down and evacuated after an anonymous caller phoned in a bomb threat.

Queensland railway union official Greg Smith told ABC radio he had been advised as many as four bombs had been placed on buses and trains.

State Premier Peter Beattie said commuters should not panic and that authorities were being over-cautious in their response to a probable hoax: "We are deliberately doing it because of the events of last week."

In Sydney, the police statement against the eight terrorism suspects placed the reactor as a possible target after three - Abdul Rakib Hasan, Mazan Touma and Mohammed Elomar - were stopped nearby.

They had a trail bike with them and said they were in the area to ride it, but later gave differing explanations of how they had spent the day.

The police statement also said a lock on a gate blocking an access road to a reservoir near the reactor had been cut recently.

The nuclear reactor has been cited before as the target of a possible terrorist plot. In August 2000, the Weekend Herald revealed that New Zealand detectives had warned Australian authorities about a possible threat to the reactor ahead of the Sydney Olympics.

While investigating a people-smuggling ring, police raided houses in Mt Albert and found a Sydney street map with access routes to the reactor marked, as well as a notebook with police security tactics, standards and chains of command for the Auckland Commonwealth Games in 1990.

Australian police last week arrested 18 men in Sydney and Melbourne after dramatic raids.

They claim members of the group used false personal and company names to buy chemicals for the production of peroxide-based explosives as well as PVC pipes and laboratory equipment and a 100-litre icebox to store them in.

But the statement conceded that the seized chemicals could be used for legitimate purposes and the amounts the suspects bought - or tried to buy - did not exceed industry standards, although the quantities were larger than for common uses.

Police said they had seized 165 railway detonators at one suspect's home, and that one man was arrested last month after trying to steal six digital timers and 132 batteries.

Other seized items included several firearms, ammunition and replica guns, and copies of jihadist videos called Are You Ready To Die and Sheik Osama's Training Course.

The statement said that during face-to-face discussions with Benbrika, some of the men discussed suicide-bombings, with one, Khaled Sharrouf, 24, allegedly saying: "I want to die".

Benbrika is said to have told members they needed permission from their parents to engage in holy war - "If your mother says 'no jihad', then no jihad" - and that one, Touma, 24, had asked his parents, with an undisclosed response.

Police said they had also trailed members of the group on shooting and camping trips near Bourke, in the far northwest of NSW, which the statement alleged were part of their training for jihad.

"These trips are consistent with the usual modus operandi of terrorists prior to attacks."

- Additional reporting: AAP