The BBC reports Australian police arrested 16 people in Sydney and Melbourne preventing a “potentially catastrophic attack.”

Chemicals, weapons, and computers were seized in raids on 23 houses in Sydney and Melbourne Tuesday, following a 16-month investigation.

“I'm satisfied that we have disrupted what I would regard as the final stages of a large-scale terrorist attack, or the launch of a terrorist attack:”

Prosecutor Richard Maidment told the court the men had formed a terrorist group to kill “innocent men and women in Australia”.

He claims they received military-style training in rural Australia and had discussions about bomb-making.

[. . .]

“The members of the Sydney group have been gathering chemicals of a kind that were used in the London Underground bombings,” Mr Maidment said, adding that Abu Bakr was the ringleader of both the Melbourne and Sydney groups.

From California Yankee.