2 held in Australia counterterror raids

National Security chief Michael Phelan said: “Last December, there were a number of documents seized…and those documents clearly talked about a plan and there were government buildings named in those plans”. There are three other individuals now in jail who were also expected to be charged with the same offense, said police.

Police have conducted a steady stream of raids across the country since the government raised the nation’s terrorism warning level in September 2014 in response to the domestic threat posed by supporters of the Islamic State group. They were arrested during early-morning raids in Sydney on Thursday morning.

Guardian Australia understands one of the targets of the raid was a 15-year-old who was arrested is now being questioned at Bankstown police station.

A teenager and four men were charged Thursday with planning a terrorist attack on an Australian government building, part of an ongoing investigation into the alleged plot, police said.

“It started past year with an alleged terror plot to conduct an attack in Sydney, and with the additional charges today we are saying that there was a further alleged plot that was going to be undertaken In Sydney”, said Phelan. New South Wales Police Commissioner Catherine Burn said those charged were “associates” of those responsible for Cheng’s death.

“There’s absolutely no doubt that the fact we’re charging a 15-year-old with a very, very serious offence, one that has a maximum of life imprisonment, this is concerning not only to us in law enforcement but should be concerning to everybody”. “How they’ve become radicalized, we don’t actually know”, he said. “We don’t know how the 15-year-old has got to the point where we will allege he got”, she added. He said they had “the capability and the intent to carry out an attack, here in Australia” but that there was also enough intent domestically to execute the plot without their involvement.

Ms Burn said Thursday’s arrests were not linked to last week’s raids on two homes in Merrylands, including the Lockwood Street home of a man accused of supplying the gun that killed Mr Cheng.