A court in Melbourne, Australia heard some chilling evidence yesterday regarding the activities of Abdul Nacer Benbrika, an Islamic cleric suspected of plotting a massive terrorist attack.  The evidence included surveillance tapes of Benbrika urging his followers to kill at least 1,000 Australians to “please Allah.”

Mr Benbrika encouraged his devotees to plan a large-scale terrorist attack, which police foiled during its "developmental stages", the court heard during the opening day of the committal hearing of 13 suspects yesterday.

"If you kill, we kill here 1000," Mr Benbrika allegedly said in a conversation covertly taped by police. "Because if you get large numbers here, the government will listen."

Benbrika is currently on trial along with 12 other people, including Shane Kent, a “blonde recruit” who allegedly traveled to Afghanistan in 2001, met Osama bin Laden, and received extensive weapons and explosives training.  The suspects were arrested in November 2005 during a series of raids that turned up large quantities of alleged precursor chemicals, laboratory equipment and instruction manuals on the production of the explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP).  Police also found maps and photographs of potential targets, including the Australian Stock Exchange, Flinders Street Station (Melbourne’s landmark central train exchange), and the Melbourne headquarters of Australia’s Departments of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Immigration.

Benbrika, a native of Algeria, came to Australia in 1989 on a temporary visa.  He claimed that he faced persecution in Algeria and was eventually granted Australian citizenship.  During the following years he became increasingly radicalized and attracted a small group of like-minded fanatics, mostly the disaffected children of Muslim immigrants. 

As Mark Steyn has noted, “Pre-modern Islam beats postmodern Christianity--and, for young men in search of an identity, transnational jihad beats multicultural nullity.”  If that diagnosis is correct, the long term prospects for the West are not good.