Accused plane terror plotters identified

The four men arrested over an alleged plot to bring down an Australian commercial jet have been identified.

Forensic officers outside a raided property in Surry Hills in Sydney yesterday.

UPDATE: Four men remain in custody on Monday night over an alleged plot to bring down an Australian commercial jet, with details of the suspects emerging.

Surry Hills painter Khaled Merhi, along with Khaled Khayat, Mahmoud Khayat and Abdul Merhi have been identified as being members of what authorities believe was an alleged plan to launch a major terrorist attack, orchestrated by Islamic State milit­ants from within Syria.

None of the men have been charged since they were arrested on Saturday.

The four men arrested ranged in age with the youngest in their thirties and the oldest in their fifties.

Despite previous reports, the four are not two sets of fathers and sons.

The two Khayat men are known to be passionate supporters of the Canterbury Bulldogs NRL team, and another man with the same surname — believed to be a close relative — began deleting his social media profiles following the arrests.

Counter-terrorism authorities were continuing to search their homes in Surry Hills, Wiley Park, Lakemba and Punchbowl on Monday.

In custody: Khaled Khayat.

The group of men reportedly tried to board an international flight previously and failed, causing them to change their target to a domestic flight.

The ABC reports the men detained following counter-terrorism raids had already made an attempt to get an improvised explosive device onto a plane.

The network also reports the intelligence which led Australian authorities to arrest the men at the weekend came from the British government, which declared it was going to issue a public security alert for all travel to Australia after it intercepted communications from Syria to Australia.

Justice Minister Michael Keenan said he would not confirm the reports tonight in an interview on The 7.30 Report.

“I’m not going to confirm or deny what you have just said,” he told host Leigh Sales.

“But what we have seen is we have acted. Once we got information that there was something brewing within the Australian community that required our attention. Now, we get intelligence through an enormous number of different sources ... We analyse that and take appropriate action to keep the Australian public safe. Now, that’s what we have done in this case.”

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EXCLUSIVE: Terrorist cell planned gas attack

A family of suspected Islamist ­extremists allegedly plotted to bring down an Australian commercial jet by gassing the passengers, in what authorities believe was a major terrorist attack plan orchestrated by Islamic State milit­ants from within Syria.

Travellers were warned last night to expect major delays at the nation’s airports as authorities rolled out extra security measures to counter what sources said was a fast-moving, still unfolding terror conspiracy, the full extent of which was not yet known.

Four Lebanese Australians were in custody after police swooped on the cell and thwarted what they will allege was a sophisticated ­attempt to kill hundreds of people by crashing a civilian plane.

Airports around the country were on heightened alert as ­counter-terrorism police worked to learn all they could about the operation. It was only on Wednesday that police received intellig­ence about the alleged cell from authorities overseas.

Malcolm Turnbull described the alleged plot as “major’’ and “elaborate’’ and said the government would impose extra security on airports across the country.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin said the weekend’s operation ­involved men from Sydney who it was feared were plotting to ­smuggle an improvised explosive device aboard a long-haul passenger flight destined for the Middle East.

“At this time, we don’t have a great deal of information on the specific attack, the location, date or time. However, we are investig­ating information indicating that the aviation industry was potentially a target of that attack,’’ Mr Colvin said.

The Australian has been told the men were allegedly constructing a “non-traditional’’ device, one that would kill the occupants of the plane with poisonous gas.

Multiple sources have told The Australian the four, who were ­related by blood and marriage, were constructing an explosive ­device that could have emitted a toxic, sulphur-based gas that would have killed or immobilised everyone on the aircraft.

It is understood the device was in the final stages of readiness, prompting police to swoop. It is understood the men were not known to counter-terrorism police before the weekend’s operation, with the most serious matter against any of the four being a ­negligent driving offence.

Yet at some point the men ­appear to have allegedly become highly radicalised.

The four men were arrested on Saturday after heavily armed NSW police officers raided five properties, two in Punchbowl, one in Lakemba and one in Wiley Park — all in Sydney’s southwest — and one in inner-city Surry Hills. The Australian has been told the men are dual nationals.

Heightened security at Sydney Airport after the terror raids.

Because of tightened security, travellers embarking on inter­national flights were being told last night to arrive three hours ahead of schedule while domestic passengers were advised to allow two hours to clear security.

Passengers were also told to limit their carry-on baggage as a means of reducing travelling ­delays.

“Some of the measures will be obvious to the public, some will not be,” the Prime Minister said.

“Travellers should be prepared for additional scrutiny at screening points and while it is important that Australians are aware of the increased threat, be assured we have the finest security and intelligence services in the world.’’

Two police officers guarded the front of the raided terrace house in Surry Hills yesterday, while several­ forensic officers were still ­examining items taken from the premises, in a lane at the back sealed off by riot squad vehicles.

It is understood several items, including a mincer and a domestic grinder, were retrieved from the raided properties, with the suggestion being they were to be used to build an improvised explosive device to be smuggled on to a plane.

While the big Lebanese-Australian communities in Sydney are in the outer west and southwest, many of whom came fleeing the civil war of 1975-90, those in Surry Hills formed the first ­nucleus in the 1950s and 60s.

Local members of the Surry Hills Lebanese community, who described themselves as fairly harmonious among their Christian, Sunni Muslim and Shia Muslim members, said yesterday they were stunned that police anti-­terror raids more often associated with the larger Lebanese-Australian populations in western Sydney had come to their suburb on the CBD’s southeastern fringe.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull talks to media about the terror threat.

The Australian has been told the four men in custody were related­: two fathers and two sons, their families joined by marriage.

The Australian has been told the suspected cell was in contact with Islamic State terrorists inside Syria and that contact was ­“crucial’’ in the development of the group’s plan.

It is understood Australian authorities found out about the group after authorities received ­intelligence from a foreign security service.

Police believe the cell lacked the capability or the know-how to build such a sophisticated device by itself and it was guided, directed and encouraged by Islamic State militants directly.

It is not clear how it proposed to smuggle the device aboard the plane, nor is it certain that it would have been successful in doing so.

But by late Friday and early Saturday morning, police and ASIO officers had become so alarmed at the progress of the group’s plans that they felt compelled­ to move, arresting the men and detaining them on counter­-terrorism legislation that allows police to hold them for up to seven days without charge.

Police were yesterday preparing an application to the Federal Court to have the men detained under judicial supervision.

Additional reporting: Ean Higgins