Operation Neath began in February 2009 as another investigation into al-Shabab support, with around 20 people—including Saney Aweys, Wissam Fattal and Nayef el-Sayed—suspected of assisting the Somali jihadist movement.
By 2009, this small support network had expanded beyond the Somali diaspora in Australia to include people of other backgrounds, mainly from Middle Eastern countries who lacked the nationalist element in their motivation.
[9] According to police spokesmen, the suspects had been seeking a Muslim cleric willing to give a fatwa authorising a jihad attack on an Australian military target.
[14] Evangelical church reverend Danny Nalliah planned to use the plot as an argument to explain that Christianity should be protected "as the core value of the nation" in his speech titled Is the West being de-Christianised?
[16] As a consequence of this and other incidents, the government of Australia reconsidered its approach to the threat of terrorism and announced that it would release a national security White Paper late in 2009.
[17] An editorial in The Daily Telegraph called attention to the wider problem of terrorism emanating from the "ungoverned," but heavily Islamist territory of Somalia.
"[18] 16,000 Somali immigrants live in Australia, and Australian authorities have been worried for some time about the close links some of their number maintain with Islamist and jihadi organisations and ideologies.