[Jpost] Soldiers in the IDF’s Unit 8200 thwarted a major Islamic State terror attack this past summer which aimed to bring down a civilian airliner headed from the Australian city of Sydney to Abu Dhabi, the army has revealed.
In cooperation with Israel’s intelligence community, soldiers provided exclusive intelligence that they had gathered on an attack that was being planned. This information led to the arrest of the suspects, even as they were in a very advanced stage in executing their terror plot, the army said.
The ISIS-inspired attack against an Etihad Airways flight originating in the Australian city of Sydney to Abu Dhabi was thwarted by Australian officials in July. Four men were arrested in Sydney suburbs for planning two separate attacks. One of the attacks involved planting an improvised explosive device on an unwitting “mule,” who would carry the device on board the plane where it would be detonated in the air.
Local press at the time quoted Australian police as stating that one suspect planned to plant military-grade explosives that had been sent by a senior ISIS operative through international air cargo to the suspects in Australia.
For that plot, the New South Wales Joint Counter Terrorism Team charged 49-year-old Khaled Mahmoud Khayat and 32-year-old Mahmoud Khayat with two counts each of acts in preparation for a terrorist act. |