Suspect arrested and charged in arson attack in Australia
Strangely enough, they're not releasing that many details here:
MELBOURNE, Australia – Authorities charged a man Friday with lighting one of Australia's deadly wildfires and whisked him into protective custody amid national fury that arsonists may be to blame in the blazes that left more than 180 people dead.As told in this article, there's a suspicion that jihadists could be behind the attack here:
Police said the man was charged with one count of arson causing death and lighting a wildfire near the town of Churchill, one of hundreds that raged through southeastern Victoria state last weekend, police said. He also was charged with possessing child pornography.
More than 180 people died and more than 1,800 homes were destroyed in the blazes. The official toll for the Churchill fire is 21 dead.
The suspect's identity was being kept secret for his own safety, Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Dannye Moloney told a news conference. He was brought from Morwell, near the fire zone, to the state capital of Melbourne, Moloney said.
Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported that the man was charged in court in Morwell on the three charges, but that he did not appear. He was ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation, the broadcaster said.
The suspect faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison for the deadly arson charge, and a maximum of 15 years on the second arson charge.
(IsraelNN.com) As more than 31 major fires continued to rage in the Australian state of Victoria and the death toll approached 200, there was speculation on Tuesday that some of the blazes may have been set by Islamists waging a "holy war", or jihad.Could it be possible that the suspect's name is being withheld because he's of Arabic/Pakistani descent, and would draw more suspicion that way that his actions were jihad related?
No official has come out and voiced this suspicion, and most of the fires were attributed to lightning strikes during one of Victoria's hottest days on record. However, investigators have determined that some of the fires were deliberately set by arsonists, prompting Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to say that whoever was responsible for lighting the fires had committed "mass murder".
But bloggers have pointed to a report from September 2008 which warned that Australia had been singled out as a target for a "forest jihad" by a group urging Muslims to deliberately light bushfires as a weapon of terror.
According to the report in The Age five months ago, "U.S. intelligence channels earlier this year identified a website calling on Muslims in Australia, the U.S., Europe and Russia to 'start forest fires,' claiming 'scholars have justified chopping down and burning the infidels' forests when they do the same to our lands.'"
The website, reportedly run by a group called the Al-Ikhlas Islamic Network, "argues in Arabic that lighting fires is an effective form of terrorism justified in Islamic law under the 'eye for an eye' doctrine."
'This Terror Will Haunt Them'
The posting instructs jihadis to remember "forest jihad" in summer months. The article in The Age reported, "It says fires cause economic damage and pollution, tie up security agencies and can take months to extinguish so that 'this terror will haunt them for an extended period of time.'"
"Imagine if, after all the losses caused by such an event, a jihadist organisation were to claim responsibility for the forest fires," the website allegedly says. "You can hardly begin to imagine the level of fear that would take hold of people in the United States, in Europe, in Russia and in Australia."
The September report in The Age added that "Australian intelligence agencies are treating the possibility that bushfires could be used as a weapon of terrorism as a serious concern" and that "Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the Federal Government remained 'vigilant against such threats,' warning that anyone caught lighting a fire as a weapon of terror would feel the wrath of anti-terror laws."
The internet posting claimed the idea of forest fires had been attributed to imprisoned Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Al-Suri. It said Al-Suri had urged terrorists to use sulphuric acid and petrol to start forest fires.
