As reported in last night’s news feed, a major Islamic terror attack planned for Christmas Day in Melbourne was averted by the dedicated efforts of Australia’s police and intelligence services. Yesterday seven people who allegedly plotted the attacks were arrested, and four have been charged. All but one of them were born in Australia, and are of Egyptian and Lebanese descent. They are said to have been inspired by the Islamic State in their plotting.

Below are excerpts from a press conference given by police and political leaders about the terror raids. Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for editing and uploading this video:

Some of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s remarks were included in the above video. Mr. Turnbull spoke to Australians on television about the thwarted jihad attacks — without ever mentioning JIM, of course. He did manage to refer to “Islamism”, “Daesh”, and “ISIL”, however, identifying them repeatedly as “criminals”.

Afterwards Pauline Hanson, the leader of the One Nation political party in Australia, had a few choice words to say to the prime minister and other clueless political leaders who fail to address, or even grasp, the threat posed by Islam to Australia:

News articles about the arrests: