Israelis take credit for thwarting Aussie terror attack

ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken credit for saving hundreds of Australian lives from an alleged Islamic State plot to bomb a passenger plane leaving Sydney with 400 people on board.

“The Israeli intelligence ser- vices thwarted the downing of an Australian plane, an unimaginable slaughter,” he told an American Jewish conference in Jerusalem.

“This would have caused a major disruption in global air transport and this is only one of dozens of terrorist attacks we have foiled around the world.”

On July 26 last year the Israelis passed on the information to the Australian government and three days later Federal Police and NSW counter-terrorism officers arrested two brothers, Khaled Khayat and Mahmoud Khayat. The pair were charged with planning to have a bomb taken aboard an Etihad Airways passenger jet destined to fly to Abu Dhabi from Sydney on July 15.

When arrested police claim the brothers were in possession of a military grade explosive device and were acting on orders from an overseas IS operative. They also alleged the plot was aborted before a bag with the bomb inside concealed in a meat grinder was checked in.

Until now details of who was responsible for providing information leading to the arrests has been kept secret with the police and Australian government only alluding to help from a foreign agency, which many suspected was MI6.

While revealing Unit 8200 uncovered the alleged plot, Mr Netanyahu would not elaborate on any details of how they came to get the information.

Professor Greg Barton, an expert in international terrorism from Deakin University said the Israelis would have had good reasons for keeping their role in the arrests secret at the time.