ALL IN THE FAMILY! Two Lebanese Muslim father and son teams in Australia were arrested over ‘Islamic-inspired’ plot to blow up a plane with a homemade IED

New details have emerged about a family of Islamic terrorists accused of planning to bring down a passenger plane in an ISIS-inspired terror attack in Australia. The four Muslims, who are all related by blood and marriage, allegedly made an improvised explosive device designed to kill passengers with a sulphur-based gas.

Daily Mail  One of the men was reportedly dragged from his Lakemba home wearing only a towel, while his father was arrested at a property in neighboring Punchbowl.  Another man appeared to be distressed and bleeding from the head as he walked out, Nine News reported. The other father and son duo are understood to have been arrested in separate raids. 

While the full extent of the alleged conspiracy is not yet known, the men may have planned to detonate a homemade bomb on a flight from Sydney to the Middle East, possibly Dubai, Seven News reported. There are also reports they had allegedly plotted to gas passengers aboard an aircraft in a plan orchestrated by ISIS militants in Syria, according to The Australian.

A kitchen mincer is believed to be among the everyday items the alleged attackers used to form a lethal device, according to the Herald Sun.  The apparatus was reportedly ‘ready to go’ as counter-terrorism police stormed properties across the city’s west and inner-east.

The accused, whose names are known to Daily Mail Australia but not yet confirmed by police, were arrested in the simultaneous raids.  

One man draped in a bed sheet with a heavily-bandaged head (above) could be heard saying ‘they bashed me.’ When asked by who, he answered ‘police.’ When asked why he was being arrested, the man mumbled ‘I don’t know nothing.’ 

Shocked neighbors have said the family living in the property were ‘perfectly nice and normal people.’ (Aren’t they all…until they show their true colors?) ‘We knew them to say hello to and they seemed nice,’ said one woman, who didn’t want to be identified.

Australian Federal Police, ASIO and NSW Police jointly carried out the operation on Saturday in Surry Hills, Lakemba, Wiley Park and Punchbowl.  The plot was the 13th significant threat disrupted by police since Australia’s terrorist threat level was elevated in 2014, Justice Minister Michael Keenan said. Five plots have been executed.

The counter-terror raid in Surry Hills took place just metres from the Redfern Mosque.

“The primary threat to Australia still remains lone actors, but the events overnight remind us that there is still the ability for people to have sophisticated plots and sophisticated attacks still remain a real threat,” Keenan said.

Seven Network television reported that 40 riot squad officers wearing gas masks stormed an inner-Sydney house before an explosives team found a suspicious device. Since Australia’s terrorist threat level was raised in 2014, 70 Muslim suspects have been charged in 31 counter-terrorism police operations, Keenan said.