Third teen arrested following apparent plot to disrupt Anzac Day

The alleged plot envisaged running over a police officer, knifing him to death and then using his gun for a shooting rampage. Photo / NZME.

A third Melbourne teenager has been charged in relation to the alleged plot to attack Anzac Day events, which reportedly envisaged running over a police officer, knifing him to death and then using his gun for a shooting rampage.

Victoria Police declined to comment yesterday on the scenario, which an unnamed security official told the ABC would have ended in the alleged plotters' deaths.

But the state's Premier, Daniel Andrews, gave further details of the alleged Isis (Islamic State)-inspired plot, which police say was unearthed following the discovery of phone contact between a 14-year-old English boy and one of the five young Australians arrested in Saturday's counter-terrorism raids in suburban Melbourne.

Andrews said there was "every reason to believe multiple Anzac Day events had been looked at and were potentially going to be targeted".

The 14-year-old was initially arrested in Blackburn, Lancashire earlier this month, after British police examined his electronic devices. Greater Manchester Police say they found evidence of "communication" between him and 18-year-old Australian Sevdet Besim, about "what we believe is a credible terrorist threat".

They immediately re-arrested the boy and tipped off their Australian counterparts.

In Melbourne, police said they had charged a third man, named by local media as 18-year-old Harun Causevic, with conspiring to commit terrorist acts.

He appeared in Melbourne Magistrates Court yesterday. Besim - who, like Causevic, has been in custody since Saturday - has already been charged with the same offences.

And a third man, aged 19, has been charged with weapons offences but released on bail.

According to Australian media, police are investigating suspected links between the young men and Neil Prakash, 23, an Australian jihadist regarded by counter-terrorism experts as Isis' chief recruiter of Australians.

Prakash, 23, is reportedly an Islamic convert of Fijian-Indian and Cambodian background who has been in Syria since early 2013.

The five teenagers now under scrutiny were also associates of Abdul Numan Haider, the 19-year-old shot dead by police last September after he stabbed two officers outside a Melbourne police station.