An imminent terror attack was foiled in Australia on Tuesday with the arrest of two men who were carrying lethal weapons and an "Arabic-language video detailing the alleged plot."
They were arrested on Tuesday on the basis of a tip-off that led to a raid on a property in Sydney's western suburbs by the Joint Counter Terrorism Taskforce.
The two men – Omar Al-Kutobi, 24, and Mohammad Kiad, 25 – were denied bail, as the case was adjourned to Thursday. There is no information on whether they belong to the ISIS or any other terror group.
"A number of items were located including a machete, a hunting knife, a home-made flag representing the proscribed terrorist organisation IS, and also a video which depicted a man talking about carrying out an attack," New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn said, according to AFP.
While confirming that the duo were about to carry out an attack, Burn said it was not sure whether it involved beheading.
Attorney-General George Brandis told parliament that the video allegedly showed "one suspect kneeling in front of an ISIL flag, with the knife and machete, making a politically motivated statement, threatening to undertake violent acts with those weapons."
On the nature of charges against the two men, Burn said: "We will allege that both of these men were preparing to do this act yesterday. We built up information, we received further information which indicated an attack was imminent. And we acted."
"What we are going to allege is consistent with the IS messaging," she added.
"We believe that the men were potentially going to harm somebody, maybe even kill somebody, and potentially using one of the items that we identified and recovered yesterday, potentially a knife," Burn said.
