"Surprise over plan to hit Australian airports"

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Surprise over plan to hit Canberra
By Simon Kearney and Joseph Kerr 
The Australian


THE man who masterminded the September 11 attacks on the US planned to visit
Australia soon afterwards to scout out weaknesses in airport security. 

But a confessed plot by al-Qa'ida's key terror planner Khalid Shaikh
Mohammed to attack the US embassy in Canberra has raised eyebrows in
Australia's intelligence services, which did not have the scheme on the
radar. 

Mohammed has confessed to planning the 9/11 attacks on the US, the 2002 Bali
bombings that killed 88 Australians and a host of other atrocities going
back to the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing in New York City. 

His admissions were contained in the transcript of a US military tribunal
hearing released by the Pentagon in Washington on Wednesday night. 

Mohammed's confessions included the previously unknown plot to attack the US
embassy in Canberra along with US embassies in other countries. 

A senior Australian security source told The Weekend Australian the US
embassy plot "doesn't ring a bell". 

The US embassy spokesman and Attorney-General Philip Ruddock refused to
comment on the plot confession. 

The terrorist who coldly detailed his crimes last weekend planned to visit
Australia some time at the end of 2001, but the multiple-entry tourist visa
he received in August that year was cancelled soon after the September
attacks. 

A security source told The Weekend Australian that Mohammed intended the
visit to be a surveillance trip to assess aviation targets. "(Mohammed) was
aiming to come here looking at surveying airports," the source said. 

Since The Australian revealed in 2004 that he had applied for and received a
tourist visa, Mohammed's reason for wanting to visit Australia has been the
subject of speculation. 

At that time, Southeast Asian intelligence services speculated he had Sydney
airport in his sights. He was believed to have had plans to meet two people
he knew in Australia. Previous known associates include Jack Roche, now in
prison in Perth after being convicted of conspiring to bomb the Israeli
embassy in Canberra in 2000. 

Roche has admitted meeting Mohammed in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2000. He was
quizzed by the senior al-Qa'ida figure -- though at the time, he did not
know who he was -- about US airline interests in Australia and Jewish
interests and personalities, in particular Melbourne mining magnate Joseph
Gutnick. 

Yesterday, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said Roche had
provided material that related to US interests. 

"If you go through the transcripts of material that we obtained in the
dealings we've had with Mr Roche there is an allegation contained in there
about the US interests," Mr Keelty said. "In fact, Jack Roche was convicted
of planning to do such an attack himself." In the months after his capture
in February 2003, Mohammed detailed his activities and contacts for US
intelligence services. 

His arrival in Guantanamo Bay in September last year from a secret prison
signalled he was about to be put before a US military tribunal, from where
his admissions this week were made public. 

Australian intelligence services have had access to some of the material he
has given up over the four years of his captivity.

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