SYDNEY, Australia -The Sydney Opera House has appeared in an online al-Qaeda magazine on terrorism and bomb-making, prompting the federal government to try to prevent the magazine's spread to the Australian web.Police on Thursday cautioned Australians to be vigilant after an Al Qaida-linked online magazine published a picture of Sydney's iconic Opera House, and expressed concern about its influence on the local Islamic community.
Police are unclear about the significance of the Sydney Opera House photograph appearing in the latest issue of Inspire, an English-language online magazine published by associates of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The picture was carried without any comment or reference point.- The photo came to police attention after it was posted earlier this week, and local media reported on it Thursday. The magazine cover features a picture of late al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden.
The Opera House picture is on page 35 of the 61-page publication and serves as the cover of a section that includes lessons on how to use an and how to make bombs. The image is accompanied with the title "Open Source Jihad."- Australia, an isolated island continent, has been largely untouched by terrorism, unlike other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, especially neighboring Indonesia. Bombings on its tourist island of Bali in 2002 killed 202 people, 88 of them Australian.
Last December, three Australians of Somali and Lebanese origin were convicted of plotting a suicide attack against a Sydney army base. Australia's terrorist alert level remains at medium, which means an attack could occur, and will not be changed because of the publication, said Attorney General Robert McClelland.
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