Five arrested over Christmas Day terror plot in Melbourne

Australian police in the city of Melbourne have foiled a terror plot and detained five suspects behind the scheme.

The suspects had planned to carry out a series of Christmas Day attacks using explosives, knives and a gun in the heart of the country's second-largest city, officials said on Friday.

Police said the attacks had been planned for Melbourne's Flinders Street train station, the Federation Square adjacent to it, where restaurants are located, and St. Paul's Cathedral.

Graham Ashton, the Victoria state police chief commissioner, said the group had been plotting the attack for three weeks.

Police initially arrested seven people linked to the plot on Thursday night and Friday morning. Two of the suspects, a man and a woman, were released shortly afterward without being charged.

The five men kept in custody were between the ages of 21 and 26. Three appeared in a Melbourne court charged with preparing or planning a terrorist attack. They each face a life sentence if convicted. Hamza Abbas, 21, Ahmed Mohamed, 24, and Abdullah Chaarani, 26, did not enter pleas or apply for bail. They will appear in court again on April 28.

Police said the other two detained people would also be charged with preparing a terrorist attack.

Four of the five suspects were born in Australia and the fifth was Egyptian-born with Egyptian and Australian citizenship.

Police believed the threat had been neutralized through raids on five Melbourne premises.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the foiled attack was one of the biggest "terrorist" plots prevented by police over the past years.

He said fighting terrorism was a common "challenge" to all people around the world, which they must not fear.

"We will continue to go about our lives as we always have. What these criminals seek to do is to kill. But they also seek to frighten us… But we must not be cowed by the terrorists," he said.

The suspects were said to be inspired by the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

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