Police take away documents after the raids. A 25-year-old Glenroy man has been charged with an act in preparation for or planning a terrorist act. He will appear in Melbourne Magistrates Court later today.

Police are interviewing a 26-year-old Carlton man, a 25-year-old Preston man and a 22-year-old man from Meadow Heights. All four men arrested are Australian citizens.

Police have confirmed they are also interviewing a fifth man, a 33-year-old, who is already in custody in relation to other matters.

Police are also questioning several other people. A NSW Police spokesperson said 20 officers from the Counter Terrorism and Special Tactics Command helped in the Melbourne phase of the investigation over a number of months. No raids or arrests were made in NSW, a federal police spokesman said. But NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione today revealed that a 35-year-old Lakemba man is assisting police with their inquiries into the planned terrorist attack on Holsworthy army base. Mr Scipione would not be drawn on how the man was connected with the Melbourne suspects and it did not appear at this stage that he would be arrested or charged.

NSW Police were told of the planned attacks, which could have potentially been ‘‘catastrophic’’, in late March and had been working with the Victorian Police and the Australian Federal Police. Acting AFP Commissioner Tony Negus said the alleged intention of the group was to gain entry to Australian Army barracks and kill as many people as they could. "Police will allege that the men were planning to carry out a suicide terrorist attack on a defence establishment within Australia involving an armed assault with automatic weapons," he said. "Details of the planning indicate the alleged offenders were prepared to complete a sustained attack on military personnel until they themselves were killed." The alleged plotters had links to groups affiliated with the Al Shabaab terrorist organisation in Somalia - some were of Somali descent, others Lebanese, Mr Negus said.

The investigation revealed some of the alleged plotters had travelled to Somalia to join in fighting there, he said.



The group had been "actively seeking a fatwa, or religious ruling, to justify its plan for a terrorist act in Australia," Mr Negus said. Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland said search warrants issued across Melbourne and at Colac in the state's south-west might take 24 hours to complete. Mr Overland said police had been anxious to control the alleged threat during their investigation and the time had come to act. "I think it’s sufficient to say that we got to a point where we were satisfied it was appropriate to take some action, and that’s what we did," Mr Overland said.

Mr Overland stressed the overwhelming number of Islamic people in Australia and Melbourne were valued members of the community, not terrorists. He did not rule out further arrests in association with the raids, but said no one had been apprehended overseas. Mr Overland said the suspects had conducted reconnaissance at Holsworthy in outer south-western Sydney. There had also been "‘suspicious activity around other bases’’ which he was not prepared to identify.



Mr Overland said he was "extremely disappointed" by leaks that led to reporting of the raids in newspaper. "We will be vigorously pursuing the leak from my end and I expect that the federal authorities will be doing the same,'' Mr Overland said. Copies of the newspaper were publicly available at 1.30am in Melbourne, well ahead of the raids, he said. "This, in my view, represents an unacceptable risk to the operation, an unacceptable risk to my staff,'' Mr Overland said. "It's a risk that I take extremely seriously and is cause for great concern.''

The 's editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell defended the timeframe used for publishing the details.

Mr Mitchell said copies of the paper carrying the story were not available at at 1.30am. "We held the story out of all early editions," Mr Mitchell told website. "No newspaper that was sold before the raids had any mention of them - they had Godwin Grech on the front page. "Only papers that were sold at newsagents after the raid, and those destined for home delivery, had the raid story on page one."

Journalist Cameron Stewart, who was a spy with the Defence Signals Directorate before joining in 1987, said the AFP nominated the publication date for the article after he sought comment from them. "They said please don't publish because you might comprise the investigation," he told Sky News. "I listened to their arguments and we did not publish. Early-morning raids across city

Victoria Police and the Australian Federal Police executed 19 search warrants at homes in Glenroy, Carlton, Meadow Heights, Roxburgh Park, Broadmeadows, Westmeadows, Preston, Epping and Colac about 4.30am.

Police set up a crime scene at the corner of View and Glen streets, Glenroy, in Melbourne's north. Police blocked off View Street in both directions. Investigators loaded equipment into the house, while they waited for the arrival of forensic chemists. A small pale green weatherboard house, three doors along from the corner of Glen Street, was among those raided. Resident Kylie Bitnell, who has lived in Glenroy for 18 years, described the morning’s events as “a bit scary”. Loading

“You hear about it, but you don’t think it’s going to happen [in your neighbourhood],” he said.

- with Alexandra Smith and AAP