Sunday, January 07, 2007
One of them is in East Timor in the hands of Alfredo Reinado!
Is this one of the rocket launchers the Aussie government is looking for?
January 06, 2007 11:00pm
STOLEN Australian Army anti-tank rockets and their launchers are believed to have been stowed in plastic pipes and buried in a secret hideaway by a suspected terrorist gang.
Instructions on how to hide the M72 anti-tank rockets were allegedly contained in a computer seized by police in a terrorist raid in 2005, The Sunday Mail has learned.The material detailed how weapons could be concealed in PVC piping, an ideal hide for the weapons that are used in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Police surveillance observed a suspect loading a car with several 100mm PVC pipes, originally feared to be for bomb-making.
A Sydney court was told last year that another accused terrorist's vehicle contained a spade, a rake and a small quantity of dirt when seized by police, indicative that digging might have taken place shortly before.
A former Islamic bookshop worker appeared in court in Sydney on Friday accused of selling seven anti-tank rockets to a Sydney crime boss. The alleged seller, Taha Abdul-Rahman, 28, was remanded in custody until next week when police are expected to reveal details of their case against him.
Police allege the crime boss Eddie Darwiche, now serving a life sentence, paid more than $70,000 for the weapons, five of which he onsold to suspected terrorists.
New South Wales and federal police say the gang discussed targeting several prominent buildings including the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney.
The one-shot disposable M72 first used by Australians in Vietnam can pierce a 30cm steel plate or 60cm of reinforced concrete.
Three days after Darwiche was said to have bought the stolen rocket launchers, the crime boss hatched plans to fire one of the anti-tank weapons at a fibro Sydney home where rival gangsters were hiding, according to evidence before a Supreme Court jury last year.
A Darwiche associate, Abbas Osman, contacted a former Canadian military man to seek advice about using the rocket-launcher.
"We want to fire it into a house. I just want to know – if it goes through a house, a fibro house, does it have to hit something hard?" Osman allegedly inquired.
Darwiche apparently left the rocket launcher behind and used two automatic rifles and two pistols to kill his rival and an innocent woman asleep in the house.
Police recovered one rocket launcher last year after Darwiche was convicted of murder.
But the other six are still to be located, with police vowing that "no effort will be spared in pursuing this".
